


Illness

by LieutenantStrawberry



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Drama, F/M, Illogical Sarek, Pon Farr, Sickfic, Unnecesary Drama, Worried Amanda Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantStrawberry/pseuds/LieutenantStrawberry
Summary: When Sarek's Pon Farr arrives, he's unable to say anything because 'Vulcans do not speak of it'.Currently being edited.
Relationships: Amanda Grayson/Sarek
Comments: 7
Kudos: 93





	1. Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not an English native speaker. This is my contribution to Amanda and Sarek fanfiction.
> 
> Feel free to point out mistakes.

Sarek woke up trembling and groggy.

His heart was pounding with such force that he thought it would burst. He swallowed, closing his eyes slowly to recover composure. When his heart rate stabilized, he opened his eyes again and realized that it was still early morning.

The bedroom was utterly dark and soundless.

It was the seventh night in a row that he woke up agitated and restless. His mind was exceptionally loud. The need for meditation never felt so imperious and Sarek was longing to soothe his psyche. An unsettling shred of anxiety and dread came across, filling him with overwhelming apprehension.

He deemed the possibility of work-related stress as the source of his mental disarray, but that would be only an excuse to himself. Sarek struggled to accept what was happening the first six nights of irregular wakefulness, but he just couldn't ignore it anymore. Burying it would not make it disappear.

His eyes looked at the ceiling by several minutes before reacting. He blinked twice, and took a deep breath.

Vulcans did not dream on a regular basis. But that night, he had had a vivid dream that he was ashamed to reminisce. Meanwhile, Amanda was sleeping right next to him.

He gave her a gaze and got up off the bed, carefully pulling out the sheets to not wake her up.

Meditation would help to settle his mind, but also to prevent the irrational and uncontrollable urges his biology would drive him to experiment. Urges that were already beginning to show and, were only going to get worse as the days went by, if he did nothing about it.

Sarek was putting on his slippers when he felt Amanda move on the bed and touch his shoulder to stop him. He flinched at that gesture and she gently withdrew her hand, looking at him quizzically.

"Sarek," Amanda muttered, watching him get out of bed and walk to the closet.

"Amanda," he said in a quiet voice, "go back to sleep."

* * *

**•••**

* * *

Amanda watched him as he changed his clothes and she could sense his nervousness. When Sarek put on his robe, he turned to her and their eyes met.

He exhaled.

Amanda reached out their bond, but felt nothing remarkably different. Although a gut feeling told her otherwise. She was no fool. It was clear that something was happening to Sarek.

Every single night of the past week, whenever she woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom or drink some water, Sarek would be awake. Amanda was aware that Vulcans required fewer hours of sleep than the average human. However, it seemed to her that he was barely getting any sleep.

Sarek was so consistent in every single aspect of his life and sleeping was not an exception. Therefore, something was off about him waking up so suddenly in the middle of the night.

"Where are you going?" she inquired, genuinely curious.

He said nothing, just stood there in the darkness of their bedroom.

That seemed strange to her. He didn't have an answer? Normally, Amanda wouldn't care. It's not like she kept checking up on him or questioning him every second. However, his attitude was odd and he seemed a bit agitated.

"Sarek," she insisted. "Where are you going?"

She heard another sigh, and he finally answered, "I shall be meditating."

"Meditating?"

He nodded his head.

"In the middle of the night?" she queried without attempting to hide her confusion. She perceived Sarek's lips twitching, but he said nothing and nodded again.

Amanda narrowed her eyes.

"I will see you in the morning," he added before leaving their bedroom.

Amanda was confused, but she let him be and didn't go after him. She was too tired.

Perhaps, he needed some meditation because of his stressful work as ambassador to Earth.

* * *

**•••**

* * *

In the morning, Sarek wasn't there.

Amanda looked around the bedroom for any hint of his presence, but was unsuccessful.

Defeated and confused, she started to search for clothing in the wardrobe.

Inevitably, her mind began to examine what had happened the night before. She found nothing extraordinary about Sarek getting up in the middle of the night, but rather the subtle variations in his behavior.

 _Why did he resemble a kid trapped doing mischief?_ she wondered.

His Vulcan facade remained flawless, but Amanda always could see beyond his emotionless semblance. Certainly, she had a feeling of overreacting and over analyzing his behavior, but something in his eyes let her know he was caught doing _something._

 _Vulcans don't lie_.

She shook her head. That was a lie. Yes, they did, but not as much as humans, and they opted to do it at specific times.

 _Was he sick? No…_ That was very unlikely.

Amanda could almost hear his voice telling her how illogical it was not to see a healer when you were sick. The last time Sarek had been sick, he had told her right away that he started to feel ill. Well, that time it hadn't really been necessary for him to say it. He had had a hard-to-ignore sick look on his face. Besides, the irritation emanating from the bond due to discomfort caused by the Andorian flu.

 _No, no, no._ _It must be something else, Amanda!_ she thought.

Amanda got ready for her day and left their room wearing her favorite dress. She looked around her surroundings; the hall was empty and the only sound she perceived was her own footsteps.

"Good morning. Breakfast is ready, Lady Amanda," said a servant in a soft voice when Amanda went downstairs.

"Thank you, Lila."

Lila smiled at her and walked to the kitchen. Amanda went back to reality when she heard Lila putting a plate on the table, just in front of her. She was so distracted that she didn't even remember when she had taken a seat.

She drank a sip of her tea.

"Where's Sarek? Have you seen him today?" she asked, taking a bite of the toast.

Lila straightened her shirt and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Lady Amanda. I haven't seen Ambassador Sarek today."

"Oh, okay," she replied and nodded while taking a sip of tea.

Once again, she reached out the bond. There was a moment of hesitation where she felt like Sarek had blocked her, but after a couple of seconds, she was able to feel his presence on the back of her mind.

Amanda thought that she was overreacting. Maybe, he needed some time alone. Sarek was Vulcan after all.

 _They need their space,_ she thought comforting herself.

* * *

**•••**

* * *

Two weeks later, Amanda found herself alone.

Sarek was quiet during dinner and she felt uncomfortable with his lack of interaction with her. _Was he mad at her?_ No, he would tell her. They were married, and he was always blunt about everything from the very beginning.

Amanda looked at the open door to Sarek's office at the end of the corridor. Surely, he would be meditating.

Their house was huge. On their first wedding anniversary, Sarek ordered to build a greenhouse so she could have vegetables from Earth. She loved to live there. Even though the house was quiet almost all the time, Amanda felt it was more like a home than an empty house.

She exhaled.

She couldn't just make her worries disappear. Living in the same house, let her know how methodical Sarek was about everything. He had scheduled his meditation hours, and his sleeping patterns used to be strict, as if he could control himself to a level of accuracy humans could just dream about. And now, she was in the door frame of his office staring at him.

He was quiet, like a statue in front of her with his eyes closed.

 _Was he avoiding her?_ _Why was he spending almost all his time off meditating?_

His sleep patterns were a mess since she caught him sneaking out of bed to meditate in the middle of the night. She had stayed awake waiting for him the past days in their bedroom just to fall asleep and wake up realizing he was absent. She was confused by his behavior. He barely would talk to her and spend the afternoon alone in his office. _Maybe, he_ was too busy with his work, and she was being irrational worrying for it.

Amanda walked away after staring at him for a couple of minutes. She shook her head, trying to get rid of her concern.

 _I'm overreacting._ _I'm being illogical_... That's what Sarek would say to her.

Maybe she had a lot of time on her hands. A little calmer, she went into the bathroom to take a shower. When she came out, she got into bed ready to rest.

It was late, and she didn't expect Sarek coming to sleep that night either. So, she read for twenty minutes and closed her eyes, ready to fall asleep.

The sound of the door opening reached for her, but she didn't react to it because she was tired and she knew it was Sarek. Under his new sleeping patterns, it was early to go to sleep.

She opened her eyes slowly and saw him. He was on the other side of the bed, so far away from her that she felt offended. He was clearly avoiding _her_.

"Sarek," she whispered softly, acknowledging his presence.

He seemed to be somewhat surprised to know she was awake.

"Amanda."

"What are you doing?" she queried, her eyes still attached to him.

She usually was able to know or have an idea of Sarek's state through the bond. But lately, she wasn't perceiving anything from him.

Sarek looked away, focusing his eyes on the ceiling and replied, "Specify."

Amanda almost laughed.

She was certain Sarek was pretending not to understand what she was talking about. After a considerable amount of time together as a couple, Amanda was pretty much capable of knowing when Sarek was truly lost or just claiming to be in order to avoid something.

"You're gonna fall off the bed if you sleep there," she pointed out holding back a laugh.

He didn't say a word and remained in his position.

"Sarek?" she insisted, kind of worried for him.

All of a sudden, she didn't find the situation as humorous as at the beginning. Sarek was behaving with the same formality he used in situations that made him uncomfortable. He was even using his "Vulcan voice".

He seemed to mull it over for a moment. As if it was difficult for him, he turned his head slowly in her direction.

Amanda was looking at him and Sarek blinked before saying anything.

"I do not have any intention to disturb your sleep," he said, politely.

"Ah," she almost burst out laughing. Disturbing her sleep? What did he mean with that? Sarek could be as Vulcan as he claimed to be, but she knewhe enjoyed being physically close to her.

She wasn't stupid.

Not even him believed that poor excuse, but she was tired enough to not start an argument about it. In private, he tended to be more open. He was talking to her like he would talk to everyone else, using his 'Vulcan voice' and being way too formal.

She turned to the bond and sensed a hint of what felt like tension emanating from it.

Sarek's eyes were attached to the ceiling. He seemed uncomfortable, and she didn't insist. If something was happening, he would be honest with her.

"Good night, Sarek."

"Good night, Amanda."

She reached out and turned off the lamp on the nightstand.


	2. Senses

Scott Langdon was Sarek's assistant at the embassy. Being around Vulcans wasn't an easy task because they were so different from humans in almost every aspect. Their behavior was remarkably cold, distant and logical than humans. Fortunately, were consistent beings and was easy to work with them once you knew how to behave around them. He had been working with Ambassador Sarek for the last two years. Although he never tried to achieve some sort of friendship with him because social interaction with Vulcans terrified him and boss-employee relationships in Vulcan differed from human ones... He had a sense of knowing him enough to realize when something wasn't okay. He saw the clock on his desk and took another sip of his coffee. Ambassador Sarek was late. He gave a glance at his clock just to confirm the anomaly as soon as he saw him walking inside of the room.

 _Thirty_ minutes of delay.

"Good morning, Ambassador Sarek," Scott said expecting for some cold apology for the delay as Vulcan social protocol dictates, but Sarek said nothing and he would not fight over something considered a triviality in his homeworld.

"Mr. Langdon," Sarek stood next to him and Scott felt intimidated. He noticed that his perfect haircut wasn't perfect anymore. Strands of hair were slightly longer than other, just a bit. Almost a couple millimeters longer, but working with Vulcans and their perfectness educated him to be as careful as they were in the details.

"Ambassador Laurie will arrive at 1200. Preparations for the meeting are done. The lounge is ready as you ordered," Scott added in a soft voice.

"Thank you, Mr. Langdon. Please notify me when Ambassador Laurie arrives. I will be at my office."

Sarek walked away, and he heard the door closing after him. Scott returned to his desk, thinking and how weird it was Ambassador Sarek, _a Vulcan_ , coming late to work. His Vulcan boss was behaving _slightly_ different the last two weeks. He never had arrived late until that moment and looked less focused on his work. An average human couldn't tell but after months surrounded by Vulcans, he could realize something was off. Ambassador's perception of time was compromised. On the daily, Scott's reminders of time were usually redundant, but more recently turned out to be actually helpful.

He stood up to get more coffee when Kylie Smith entered to the lunchroom and greeted him, waving her hand.

"Hey, how ya doin'?"

"Hi."

"I heard Ambassador Laurie is coming today. You must be bored with all those diplomats around."

"At least, I don't have to talk to them. Ambassador Sarek does all the work," Scott replied, pushing a button and looking the coffee machine working in front of him.

He eyed Kylie while she added some sugar to her tea. The words just slipped out from his mouth.

"Have ever a Vulcan you worked with been late?"

"No, never, but I was late a couple of times. Why are you asking? Were you late? Is Ambassador Sarek kicking you out for it?

" _No!_ "

Scott sipped his coffee.

"You're not gonna believe this, Kylie, but... I don't know, Ambassador Sarek has been acting weird," he lowered his voice slightly, afraid of be heard here by any Vulcan or Ambassador Sarek.

The thought of being caught gossiping about his Vulcan boss was embarrassing and terrifying at the same time.

"What do you mean? Vulcans are _weird_ , Scott."

"No, I mean..." Scott eyed the entrance of the lunchroom and got closer to Kylie. Her amusement was clear, but he ignored it and continue, "He has been... you know, Humm... _slow_ to work."

"Slow? I don't get it at all."

"He has been _lazy_ , he barely works, and I had to insist for his reply to Ambassador Laurie's request of meeting," he admitted whispering.

Kylie looked amused, shook her head with a smile on her face.

"You're going nuts, Scott. A Vulcan being _lazy_? What's next? A _pacifist_ Klingon? The thin atmosphere of this planet is _affecting_ you. "

"I'm _dead_ serious," he insisted on he meant it.

"I don't know what to say but I'll give you advice. You better not gossip about your Vulcan boss. He's gonna break your neck! They're like three times stronger than humans, remember?" Kylie wrapped her hand around her own neck in a dramatic way.

"Thank you very much, I'll think about it."

"See ya!"

Scott rolled his eyes and left the room with a new cup of coffee in his hands. He spends the next hours working at his desk. Ambassador Sarek was still at his office and didn't come out even once while he was there. He was curious. What on Earth could lead to a Vulcan to neglect his duties? He regarded the possibility of Sarek being sick, but shortly dumped out the theory. One year prior, he had caught Andorian flu and quickly dismissed himself from work.

He sighed and looked at the clock.

_1145 hours._

He knocked on the door twice.

"Ambassador."

No answer.

His hand took the doorknob and opened the door.

"Ambassador Laurie will arrive soon," Scott announced, standing in the door frame with his hands still around the doorknob. "Ambassador?"

Scott's eyes narrowed. Ambassador Sarek was in his desk... _sleeping_.

_Oh._

"Ambassador."

"Mr. Langdon," Sarek cleared his throat, slowly standing up and walking outside of his office, straightens his posture and returned to his Vulcan facade.

"Ambassador Laurie is already waiting for you, sir," Scott looked away uncomfortable and pretended to read something in his PADD.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

It was well known that Vulcan hearing sensitivity was superior to other humanoid beings around the galaxy, but Sarek never felt more aware of how much noises a human being could produce.

_Up to now._

He saw Ambassador Laurie's lips while he was talking to him about something he couldn't recall. It was the fourth meeting of that week and he couldn't be more bored. His eyes followed Laurie's assistant, taking a sip of Vulcan tea and the sound of his cup hitting the table. It felt like an explosion to him. It began like an annoying noise in the background. Suddenly, he was aware of every sound in his surroundings; His assistant's footsteps in the hallway, the voices speaking in Vulcan about that meeting in the next room, the heartbeat of every person at the table and his own like a hammer in his head.

He wanted to hide in his office, where the noise was less loud. He felt his stomach churning while the noise was more and more strong. He could throw up but that would be so impolite on his behalf. So, he took a sip of tea and swallowed, feeling his cheeks flushing without being able to control his reaction. Ambassador Laurie continued his speech and Sarek pretended to listen to it, keeping his eyes on Laurie's eyes like human protocol dictates, but his mind was a mess and couldn't catch anything or follow the conversation.

An hour passed, and then two until the meeting was over.

He caught himself speaking Vulcan with Ambassador Laurie and his assistant at the end. Not because he was aware Laurie's assistant could speak his mother tongue, but his mind was a complete disarray to the point he just forgot how properly speak Standard. Humans were so accustomed to any interaction in Standard. Ambassador Laurie's expression let him know how unfocused he was.

When they left, Sarek walked slowly back to his workplace. Never realized how long it was in the hall up to his office until now. His own footsteps were driving him crazy, and the echo was like a nightmare to his ears. Meditating at his office seemed like an adequate option but lately, meditation was not working for him. Sleeping was, by far, a much more temptress activity.

"Ambassador," Scott's voice reached to him once he was in front of his office.

"Mr. Langdon. There is something you require?" Sarek said and took a breath. He was feeling quite impatient and tried to repress it.

"Ambassador Laurie's assistant send a document for your further reading."

Sarek nodded, and Scott noticed his disregard. His expression was cold, but the human could spot an almost imperceptible sign of nuisance across his face.

"Is everything all right, Ambassador?"

Sarek thought in his reply for a couple of seconds and lowered his eyes while thinking.

"I shall go to my residency. I will return to my duties tomorrow at 0600," Sarek said. "You're exempt from your duties as well, Mr. Langdon."

Shocked, Scott saw him walking away.

_Kylie was not gonna believe him!_

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Amanda was back at home after spending most of the afternoon at the grocery store. She could just send a servant, but she liked to do some things by herself. She loved to buy at the store. They had a lot of supplies of different planets and she had met a lot of humans there. Also, she wanted to select personally a few of ingredients of Sarek's favorite vegetarian lasagna. She realized how little he had been eating during the last week, and maybe a softer approach would make Sarek 'spill the tea '. The last night, he barely ate some soup Lila cooked and went to sleep early. Which was surprising, because he spent the past two weeks meditating almost all the time. She was confused. Sarek was behaving oddly. He was visibly tired after work, hardly eating just a handful of spoonfuls of any food and avoided her in an obvious way. He would sleep on the other side of the bed, as far as possible from her, and he would jump like a cat when she accidentally touched him.

She walked in, closed the door and greeted Lila, who was in the kitchen cleaning up.

"Hi, Lila."

"Welcome home, Lady Amanda," Lila said smiling.

"I bought vegetables. I want to cook a vegetarian lasagna for tonight's dinner," she smirked, excited about her own idea. He never admitted to liking that dish of Earth cuisine, but Amanda was pretty sure he enjoyed it a lot. "I better start now. I want it ready when Sarek comes back home."

"Lady Amanda, Ambassador is upstairs."

Amanda narrowed her eyes.

"Upstairs? It's too early."

"Ambassador Sarek arrived one hour ago," she pointed out, and Amanda felt even more lost.

"Did he say something?" Amanda put her shopping at the kitchen, utterly confused. It was not his day off and get out early from work was not a possibility on Vulcan.

"No."

"Thank you, Lila. I'll go upstairs."

Her plan of a softer approach just vanished. She was married to a Vulcan. Weren't they always blunt about everything? She sighed and entered into their room. If she wanted Sarek to talk to her, she needed to request it, doing her best attempt to mimic the Vulcan way of communication. She stopped in front of their bedroom and got rid of any nervous feeling.

She was surprised to see Sarek sleeping in their bed; it was too early and he should be working at that time of the day as usual. Why he was sleeping? That was so un-Sarek like. She closed the door, and walked towards him, just to confirm that in fact, he was sleeping deeply instead of being at work.

"Sarek."

She eyed the whole room after Sarek didn't react to her voice. Next to the bed, she noticed his fancy ambassador robe he wore that morning before leaving.

"Sarek!"

Amanda opened the curtains, letting the light enter into the room. She stood up with the hand on her hips. Sarek slowly opened the eyes and roll over, covering himself with the soft sheets.

" _Ashayam._ "

"Sarek, we _need_ to talk."

"I would prefer to not discuss this subject. Perhaps another moment would be more appropriate."

" _No_ , Sarek. I need to know what's happening."

No reply.

"I'm your wife and I deserve to know what's happening to you. You hardly eat anything, you spend almost all your time off meditating and you're clearly running away from me," she told him.

He noticed how worry she was about his well-being, but wasn't able to even pronounce the name of his disease in a loud voice. How he would explain it to her?

"I'm worried, Sarek."

Sarek blinked, and she sighed.

"Are you gonna talk to me or not?"

He swallowed and shook his head.

"You can't stay quiet forever," she let him know. She didn't look mad as he expected. She was more disappointed than anything else and when she left their room, he felt defeated.

Amanda was right. He could not hide his _condition_ for so much longer.


	3. Disarray

Scott glanced at his clock, Ambassador Sarek was late again. It was amusing, in an odd way, to witness his Vulcan boss sudden behavior twist. Kylie theorized maybe he was just becoming crazy after years of emotional repression, but he kindly disagreed with her. Then, he mentioned he was married to a lovely human woman. She gasped, surprised and added, "It must be he's behaving more human because of her!".

His work at the embassy was so boring.

Scott felt ashamed of gossiping so openly about Ambassador Sarek's behavior, but everything was so off that he couldn't hold all of that just for himself. He, as a human, needed social interaction on a daily basis. His only source was talking to Kylie on lunch break and his interaction with Ambassador Sarek, but his natural inclination for gossip did almost inevitable to share his concern and curiosity about his boss' turn around.

He kind of agreed with Kylie about her second theory, but that morning when he stepped into the ambassador's office and he noticed he was wearing blue slippers under his desk, Scott was certain that something was blatantly wrong. Lately, he seemed obviously uncomfortable wearing his ambassador clothes, as he called that kind of clothing Sarek usually wore. He saw him trying to adjust his ambassador robes for, at least, fifteen minutes the day prior to a meeting with Ambassador Sovek. It was if like he felt generally uncomfortable to the point he was barely functional. Definitely, Scott found more difficult to work along with Ambassador Sarek recently.

There were a ton of different situations he could recall as proof.

For example, he was late every morning for the past weeks. He didn't mind actually, but his lateness came with more annoying situations like Ambassador delayed at work that quickly escalated until Sarek was not working at all. He didn't reply any mail to anyone without Scott's reminders to do it and his Standard was broke, to the point he had to rewrite all his replies after. Sarek's replies in Standard were a silent witness of his mental deteriorate through the days. He went from misspelling words and minimal grammatical errors he hadn't had prior to write complete nonsensical sentences, creating a weird new irregular language using Standard words but the Vulcan grammatical structure.

He was frustrated, but too afraid to say something.

Because that was not the only thing it was happening. Scott saw him showing little expressions during stressful moments at meetings or when he mentioned as a reminder that they both would attend an interplanetary meeting near to the embassy in a few days and he had remembered to him that Tellarite Ambassador to Vulcan would attend too.

Stress at the workplace or over certain moments of it, was normal for humans, but it was different with Vulcans. He never saw a Vulcan openly bothered. He considered Sarek as an impressive figure of rectitude, exempt from participating in any exchange not involving work and be annoyed over Tellar Prime’s ambassador was one of those things he couldn't visualize as something Sarek would get involved. He remembered instances where the Tellarite ambassador argued over nothing with Ambassador Sarek for the sake of arguing, but he never thought the Vulcan would feel irritated.

Later that day, almost a minute before afternoon, they were redacting an official statement inside of Sarek's office.

"Ambassador."

"Mr. Langdon, did you send the official reply to Ambassador Laurie?"

"I did."

Silence filled the room.

His mind began to think about it. Was he even aware of his state? Sometimes, he seemed to be completely oblivious, but he'd witnessed a bunch of times when Ambassador Sarek was trying to minimize his unknown condition.

"Ambassador."

"There is something would you like to discuss?"

"Actually, _yes._ "

He felt his heart breaking his ribs.

Scott imagined Sarek breaking his neck just only to mention his obvious compromised health, but it was already done. The words just fell from his mouth, "It's not my intention to intrude in your personal matters, Ambassador... but attaching to human customs, I would like to ask you if your health is compromised in any way."

"I am aware of human customs, Mr. Langdon. I am married to a human."

Scott felt stupid, Ambassador Sarek replied in a formal tone, and he regretted trying to lecture an ambassador in such matters.

"I... I did not intend to offend you. I apologize."

"No need to apologize," Sarek reiterated.

"I ask for forgiveness. It was disrespectful on my behalf to ask such a personal question."

"It is illogical to apologize any further," Sarek said. “Human customs dictates it is adequate to ask about other individual's health state when it is required according to personal judgment."

Scott blushed viciously. Ambassador Sarek remained distant, but not as always. It was something inherently different about his face. He seemed serious, but not as inexpressive or visibly unemotional as he usually was.

"Ambassador, I..."

"Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary."

But they both knew it was not illogical. Scott noticed his unwillingness to use that word and felt some sort of relief to know he was not completely out of place in his boss' eyes. In his very Vulcan manner, Sarek gave him the reason.

There was a reason to be concerned.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Amanda was happy when Sarek stopped spending every second of his life meditating alone and even happier to know he was sleeping again. It took her two days to note he was replacing meditation with sleeping and she felt disappointed. The last week, Sarek woke up after going way too early to bed, went to work at the embassy, came back to home, just to have an uncomfortable dinner, with her having a one direction conversation. Meanwhile, he would attempt to not fall asleep and choke in Plomeek soup in the process.

Vulcans were private.

She knew that.

But in her opinion, Sarek was being Illogical, even for human standards. She spent more time than she'd admit in a loud voice, thinking on a hypothesis that could justify Sarek's conduct.

The second time she tried to reach Sarek was that night in their bedroom. She helped Lila to clean up the leftovers of the dinner and waited a bit. She knew that it was the perfect moment to try again because during dinner, Sarek made an effort to hold a conversation with her and display an illusion of betterment, but she knew him too well to notice he was trying to comfort her by pretending to feel better. His attempt to keep his Vulcan facade of emotional self-control was interesting to witness, because he definitely was struggling against something she wasn't aware of. More she thought about, more concerned she was for Sarek's health, mental state and general well-being.

She sent comfort through the bond before entering in their bedroom. She opened the door and saw Sarek on what she recognized as his favorite pajama, no matter how much he insisted that it is highly illogical to have any preference for a certain article of clothing.

He was sat on the edge of the bed. He looked distracted, and he glanced at her when she walked in. She didn't need their bond to know how much tension he was feeling because of her presence, Sarek was awaiting to be involved in another argument about his state and she couldn't feel more frustrated by all of that.

Amanda slowly walked in and sat next to him, offering a soft expression to break the tension. He froze in his position, and when she put her hand over his, she felt his nervousness, only he didn't seem to dislike the physical contact like she thought, rather... she perceived some sort of relief.

"Sarek."

"Amanda." He looked away, focusing in the fluffy slippers Amanda bought for him at some store of interplanetary supplies.

"Sarek, we _need_ to talk."

He didn't want to talk. He would rather eat a considerable amount of chocolate and get intoxicated instead of speaking about his _Pon farr_ with anyone.

"What subject would you like to discuss?" Sarek said, pretending to be unaware of any previous attempt to have that argument.

She took a deep breath and continued, avoiding point out his obvious attempt to play the 'oblivious Vulcan' card, "I don't wanna start an argument... I'm worried. I have no clue what's happening to you."

"I am fine, there is nothing to worry about." He often indicated how imprecise was that word to describe anything and he was there, using it, but Amanda didn't notice.

"No, you're not."

"I am. I can assure you that I-"

"No, Sarek. Stop doing that," Amanda interrupted, frustrated. Sarek noted a hint of nuisance in her voice as he heard her sigh.

Sarek avoided to catalog her worry as Illogical, because he was aware she was not feeling that way for no reason.

"I do not understand."

"Yes, you do."

Amanda could tell he was tense, the bond let her know how uncomfortable and embarrassed he was... but why? There was any reason to feel ashamed?

"I can't have this conversation by my own. I'm just talking and you're not telling me anything."

"I just gave you a reply to all your queries," he quickly added.

"No, you didn't. You said something, but not the truth."

"It is Illogical to lie-"

"It is illogical to avoid talking to me about your state, don't you think?" she cut him off.

"I-It is," he hesitated, his mouth felt dry and was talking without thinking, which was bothersome as a Vulcan.

"Sarek... I'm not attacking you, but I need to know." Amada's eyes gave him a comprehensive look. He always thought her eyes were warm, and she didn't seem mad at him anymore.

"I am experimenting discomfort," he admitted. It was useless to deny any further his evident and unusual behavior. It was logical to tell her, but an irrational feeling of shame stopped him to do that.

_How would he even start to say something like that?_

"Discomfort? Is that the reason you're not sleeping or eating?"

"Yes."

"What a kind of discomfort?" Amanda asked.

She saw his lips twitch, but no reply came. If he wasn't Vulcan, she wouldn't think he was visibly nervous. Those micro expressions he was showing were concerning. If he were human like her, she wouldn't be having that conversation, but everything was different since he was Vulcan and every single aspect of that situation was odd. She never saw him show such emotions as nervousness, shame or distress... until now. Amanda always considered Sarek's lack of visible expressions as a peaceful trait instead of the sign of an unemotional being.

"Is that the reason why you're avoiding me?"

He needed to try to get rid of his condition by his own, so he finally said, "No, I-I am... busy."

"You're busy," she repeated.

He nodded.

She wanted to laugh. She knew his assistant Scott Langdon, a human who spent most of his time off work at the mall she used to do her shopping. Amanda had heard him complaining about Sarek's laziness with a woman recently while she was trying to reach for a can of replicated vegetables.

 _He was sleeping at his desk, Kylie!_ He had said to that woman and his theatricality, let her know how unusual was behaving Sarek at work. He wasn't working and she would feel kind of mad to hear Sarek's assistant to complain in that way about her beloved husband, but he gave her so much information without realizing it. So Amanda didn't mind if the whole place knew about her husband sleeping at work.

"Are you sure?"

"I am certain," he replied.

"I... why?"

"Elaborate."

"You still hardly eat anything, I can feel how tense you are and, you went from spending every minute of your life in meditation to sleep like a baby."

"I am hardly a _baby,_ Amanda."

"You got the point."

Sarek felt frustrated. His unfocused mind could not create any believable excuse to explain his behavior.

"I-I..." Sarek blushed and gave up on his attempt to explain himself.

The heat in his cheeks was unpleasant. It was illogical to feel humiliated for an involuntary physical reaction, he thought, but it was inevitable to feel that way.

"Did you just blush?"

After a long day at work, Sarek wanted to sleep. He barely worked that day and, after Scott Langdon left his office, he spent most of the time wishing to be somewhere else.

"I would like to finish this conversation," he said, recovering composure for a brief moment.

"Sarek... I didn't mean to laugh at you, but everything about this is so confusing,"

He stayed quiet, looking like a little kid waiting to be scolded.

"Do you have any idea of how confusing is all of this from my point of view? I feel something is happening to you, but I can't figure out what it is." Amanda lowered her voice. She was worried and irritated for his stubbornness.

"I do not," he replied uncertain. Sarek never stopped to think about how Amanda was perceiving his sudden change of conduct.

"Of course you don't."

"I would appreciate if we end this conversation. I am in need of sleep."

"Sarek." She wanted to insist and bring in the fact Vulcans require less sleep hours than humans, but her words got stuck in her throat.

" _Please_ ," he begged in an unusual lower voice. "I _want_ to rest."

He looked drained all of a sudden and she was sure Sarek's plea for resting was not simply just an immediate urge for sleeping.

Amanda nodded and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

That night, Sarek slept close to her and Amanda felt his accumulated mental fatigue like contaminated water pouring in the pristine waters of her balanced human mind.


	4. Amanda

Amanda was extremely confused.

Sarek seemed to be craving to touch her, but, at the same time, he didn't want to. He suddenly began to sleep closer to her and be physically close looked to provide comfort as far as she perceived through the bond. She caught him looking at her while she was changing her clothes a few times when he thought she was distracted and quickly looked away or left the room as soon as she stepped in, like if his chastity were in danger and Amanda were a temptation to him.

At night, she would sleep peacefully and Sarek would close his eyes to try to trick her and let her think he was better but she'd felt his mental tiredness in the back of her mind. His miracle betterment was just another avoidance behavior. He spent so much energy he didn't have, trying to deny the undeniable and after her open approach, he had learned and changed his way to avoid the conflict by pretending to improve his still-unknown condition.

Sarek was smart and diplomatic.

He didn't make an excuse yet, but neither a convincing explanation. So Amanda assumed he simply had not thought something she would find believable enough to drop out the topic or he didn't want to talk about it at all.

Sometimes, she had felt him shielding his mind against her, as Vulcans do when they want privacy and a minute later, she'd feel his emotions pouring like boiling water in her mind. Sarek almost never shielded since they got bonded but recently turned out it was becoming usual after an episode of a pretty intense emotional exchange. He knew Amanda felt his irritation and general discomfort for a brief moment, when his telepathic shields go away in a matter of seconds and she noticed the embarrassment he was feeling because of that.

His cheeks blushed viciously and he resembled almost hurt.

"I apologize," he had said in a poorly concealed shaky voice before getting into bed and turn off the light.

After his conversation when he partially admitted to be uncomfortable for unknown reasons, she'd believed him and thought he was too stressed out, but his constant emotional fluctuation, his behavioral twist and his decreasing control over his emotional display lead her to the inevitable conclusion; he was clearly _unwell_ and his _pointy ears_ were the ones to blame.

_A Vulcan disease._

Even the term sounded foreign to her. Was even possible for such controlled and perfectly perfect beings to succumb to the vulnerable state of being ill?

He had been ill the year prior, for the brief period of three days. Never, ever, even with fever, lost his Vulcan façade and was relatively coherent all the time. He was deep green flushed, shivering and mumbling in Vulcan, but his telepathic shields remained intact.

Also, he insisted her to stay away from him so she wouldn't get the same disease. This time, he wasn't that cautious about her. Thus, she deduced she wasn't able to get infected and his affection was only Vulcan, involving the telepathic aspect of their biology and as a member of a psi-null spaces was unnecessary to take distance or It was another kind of issue.

She pondered the possibility of a mental health struggle as soon as she remembered one of the very first things Sarek said about Vulcans. He had said that Vulcans were an emotional species at the beginning, but that brought instability until Surak's reforms, who taught them the ways of logic and emotional repression as a tool for improvement.

_Emotions run deeply among Vulcans, Amanda._

She felt Sarek's arrival to their house and was certain when she heard his footsteps downstairs and Lila's voice greeting him.

That afternoon, they would go out to buy supplies for Amanda's friend's birthday party and Sarek invited himself to go along with her. She was pretty conscious that it was another Sarek's forced display of improvement, but she needed help with shopping and wanted to spend time together for research purposes.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

The alien district was huge.

It was the materialized definition of i _nfinite diversity in infinite combinations_. Andorians, tellarites, orionites, Vulcans, betazoids, humans... all together in the same space.

The very first time she was there, Amanda was impressed and shocked. As a citizen of Earth, she'd met members of other species, but they were diplomatic fellows of Sarek. At the Alien district, she'd finally met civilians from every corner of the galaxy just like her. Also, it was the only place where people didn't judge her for being in an interspecies relationship. On earth, people would rudely gawk at Sarek in public, would make inappropriate questions about their relationship or openly question her about why she would get involved with a Vulcan. In Vulcan, other Vulcans would be discreetly baffled for the fact Sarek chose her as bondmate.

"First, we're gonna go buy a birthday gift for Nathan or I'll forget it."

The incoming birthday party for her friend Nathan, was a distraction to all of what was happening between them. She tried to focus on it, cause the anguish Sarek's behavior caused on her was draining and concentrate on more positive things was less distressing.

"I recall you already bought a present for your friend, Amanda," he said and Amanda was surprised to hear the clear bewilderment in his voice.

"Oh," Amanda laugh and said, "Yeah, I did, but Tara told me she bought a similar gift before and well, I didn't want to give him almost the same."

He nodded in response.

Amanda noticed he was walking slightly closer to her than usual.

"Does it bother you if after buying his gift we go to shop clothes?" Amanda asked.

"The purpose of the visit is to purchase what is necessary for tomorrow's celebration. It's logical to acquire clothing for the occasion," Sarek replied, expressionless.

"True." Amanda smiled at him, because he seemed more balanced than the last couple of days, like if he were going back to his normal self.

Sarek was dizzy because of the noise. His heart was pounding hard, and his mind was empty. He was grateful to be able to display his expressionless Vulcan facade, but due to his lack of concentration, he was not thinking clearly. His thoughts were messy sketches hovering around and he lacked of the necessary energy to attempt to set his mind.

"Sarek." Her voice made way among his thoughts, and he turned to see her.

"This way," Amanda indicated.

They both walked to a bookstore close to the food court. Reading physical books was an old-fashioned practice in that century, but Amanda thought there was something inherently unique in it.

She ended buying a whole novel collection of an Andorian mystery writer, the sales clerk recommended based on Nathan's reading preferences while Sarek remained quiet. When they left the bookstore, Sarek insisted to help her with the shopping and his blank expression worried her.

She had asked him something trivial at the bookstore. He didn't answer and stayed staring to nowhere, until she gently touched his arm. Sarek had blinked, like he was absent the whole time and answered hesitating.

"We should go home," she said.

Sarek looked at her, openly confused.

"You've stated your desire to acquire clothing for your friend's birthday celebration."

"Yeah, but..." Amanda said softly, "It's kinda late. You'd worked all day, and you must be tired. I can wear whatever I've in my wardrobe."

"I am fit," Sarek assured.

"Are you?"

"I just stated that I am."

"You sure?"

He nodded.

Amanda forced a smirk, and both continued their walk until the second floor, where it was located in the store. It was an Andorian store called 'The wardrobe of the galaxy'.

Sarek finally woke up after a lapse of mental emptiness. He found himself sitting in a chair in front of a mirror inside of the store. He searched for Amanda and saw her looking at clothes with the help of a male Orion sales clerk. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed for the appalling sensory stimulation he was being a target of.

He heard a laugh.

It was the sales clerk.

His eyes observed the scene. Amanda was talking to the Orion, and he was smirking at her.

In a flirty manner.

An unknown mix of anger towards the sales clerk and a sheer insecurity feeling invaded Sarek's chest: jealousy. It was the first time he experimented jealousy. It was highly illogical to feel jealous due to such a trivial situation, Amanda stated in countless occasion her affection for him. He breathed and tried to look away, but he wanted to stare.

His hands tingled, and he stood up.

_You're being illogical._

His own rational voice vanished in the store's bustle.

He could break that man's neck.

He wanted to.

He wasn't conscious when he walked towards Amanda and the clerk, until Amanda smiled at him and said, "Good you're here, Sarek. Look what I found for you, this is gonna look so good in you!"

Amanda placed a cotton navy blue human style shirt in front of his chest.

His aggressiveness towards the clerk faded. The culpability, shame and fear of himself hit him.

"Blue or gray?" Amanda asked.

"Blue is definitely your color," the man said, looking at Sarek blatantly flirty and winking "But he'd look handsome wearing anything, so, it doesn't matter."

Amanda laughed.

"We'll get both."

Amanda was radiating happiness and he suddenly felt upset for his brief impulse to physically assault an innocent man in her presence. A man who was clearly more interested in him than in Amanda. He was uncomfortable to have that young Orion man devouring him with the gaze so openly in his wife's presence but that made him feel eased.

The _pon farr_ was beginning to fill his mind with irresistible new impulses he'd barely be able to control, and that terrified him.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Amanda took a spoonful of tomato soup and her eyes reached Sarek, who was sat in front of her, cutting the food in his plate with concentration. She noticed how little he was eating. She almost finished her soup plate, and he still was cutting the food into microscopic pieces. She wanted to ask him to stop playing with food, not because she felt irritated for that specific situation but everything. She found exasperating his not-so-subtle attempt of play the 'oblivious Vulcan' card and she thought that his obvious efforts to maintain a facade of fragile normality, was an egregious waste of energy, because she didn't buy any of that.

"Was your day pleasant?" he asked.

"I spent a lot of time in the greenhouse today. I wanted to take care of my flowers," she said, kind of excited to talk about her garden, but her concern for Sarek's health dulled her enthusiasm.

Amanda's eyes were attached to Sarek's plate. He was still cutting, and she thought he would break it into two because his hands were holding the fork and knife, using more strength than necessary. Another person would consider that as threatening, but Sarek seemed vulnerable, struggling to moderate his own strength. At least, in her eyes, he wasn't a threat.

"How was your work? Did you have fun?" she asked, smirking nervously.

"It was adequate," Sarek replied. He was tense, not because of her or the incoming attempt to hold a conversation about his evident decreased general state... just, he'd been in a permanent tensed state for the past days as a result of his hormonal levels rising.

She sighed and mentioned, "My friends are coming tomorrow."

"I am aware." He wanted to state the exact timing of her notification, but he realized he couldn't recall it. "You noticed me prior."

The clinking sound of a metal holder falling broke the silence between Amanda and Sarek.

"Sarek," she called him softly and that feeling of shame from his side of the bond came across.

He grabbed the fork, and his eyes reached hers.

"Would you tell me if something were wrong?"

Amanda noticed an almost imperceptible shake in his right hand and he quickly took a spoonful of his replicated vegetables, delaying his response for the seconds he spent chewing the food.

"We're married," he replied.

He spiked his fork in his salad and slipped the lettuce to the right of his plate, avoiding to meet her eyes.

"That's not what I asked, Sarek," she said, more sharply she wanted to, but was too late to regret it.

Amanda's eyes shone with disappointment. She was looking at him directly in defiance, like she was daring him to attempt a better answer. Sarek resembled cornered. She saw him shrink slightly in his chair and he put the cutlery on the table's edge as his chance to stop pretending to eat.

"Would you tell?"

"I would... If were necessary," he said with honesty. Which was technically true. It wasn't a lie, but... Would he? She was reasonably concerned for his well-being. He would be in a similar position if she were obviously going through similar circumstances. He could even hear what he exactly would say to Amanda and how insistently he would suggest her to see a healer, as she probably wants him to, but he knew what his condition was and that tiny voice in his head told him he was perfectly capable of get rid of it by his own. Therefore, it was unnecessary let her know.

"I see."

Her facial expression made him feel uncomfortable. Amanda was an emotional and easy-to-read being, thus he always could know by sight how she was feeling and their bond only was a reaffirmation of her evident emotional state in tense moments.

"Amanda." Sarek felt sick of his own inability to provide any logical explanation. He surrendered his attempt to offer an excuse, because he was not that cynical and was pretty much sure she wouldn't believe it.

Which only would lead to be questioned further.

 _It is only logical to speak to her about pon farr_ , Sarek's almost gone rational part said. Once again, his rational thought was dismissed and his irrational and emotional part, reiterated louder than ever that he'd the control. His hands weren't shaking yet so, still It was possible to get better without Amanda's involvement.

"Yes, Sarek?"

Sarek took responsibility for her disappointment. As a Vulcan, he should've stay controlled and that tension both were experimenting because of his _pon farr_ was his fault. If he were more disciplined and trained, nor he or Amanda wouldn't be going through any of that.

Her fair eyes met his. He resisted the impulse to look away.

"Your concern is appreciated, but, unnecessary," Sarek said, providing her the same replied he offered to his assistant, who seemed relieved to hear those words and Sarek expected an equal response from her. The difference was that he wasn't bonded to Scott Langdon. He was just his assistant, who felt intimidated by his seriousness most of the time, and Amanda was his wife. The closest person to him in the galaxy, even more than his own family.

Sarek was ashamed, tired and distressed.

And Amanda knew that.

When they got bonded, he'd told Amanda about how common was for Vulcans to seek privacy and built mental shields to protect themselves. He had caught himself not doing it. He admitted enjoying the warm presence of Amanda in the back of his mind. He almost never attempted to shield against her, but recently, he was tempted to try.

His emotions were pouring over Amanda's well-balanced human mind. Not so long ago, he flawed and shared unintentionally how uncomfortable and distressed he was on that particular day. She'd turned to him and had tried to ask him about it and bring in his previous emotional drooling episodes as proof, to push him to acknowledge his condition, but he cut her off and avoided the argument.

Amanda couldn't feel his emotions. Sarek had shielded his mind as soon as they got in the same room, but his shame dripped and reached her.

_Shame._

But why?

"You can trust me," Amanda said and stood up. Sarek's eyes followed her until she hugged him softly.

Sarek shuddered in his chair, but didn't reject the physical contact.

" _I know, ashayam_ ," he replied in Vulcan.

She realized that she was questioning his shame as a human. For days, she felt utterly confused because of the same Sarek was feeling for, back then, unknown reasons. It was not the mere act of showing emotions that was so embarrassing to him. It was his loss of control over himself, what he found overwhelmingly distressing and shaming, because it wasn't a choice.

"You ate nothing," Amanda pointed out.

"I am not hungry," Sarek said.

"You've been not hungry for like a month," she commented caressing his hair.

He became immersed in her hug.

Sarek was _indeed_ hungry, but not for food.


	5. Impulse

If Amanda Grayson and Scott Langdon were not part of his life, Sarek would forget his own name. It was his day off and he clearly had intention to stay in bed until the afternoon. Amanda's reminder of a scheduled reunion with her human friends Tara Williams and Nathan Tremblay, disrupted his intended plans. It was Nathan's birthday, according to Amanda. So Tara and his friends wanted to celebrate such event and Amanda offered their house as location for that human occasion, which he recognized as important inside of the general human culture. As the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, he was aware of human customs. Regardless, he never understood the human compulsion to reunite for no specific reason or events that seemed not meritorious of any special acknowledgement, like the mere act of being born. Back then, he did not find any inconvenience when Amanda told him that she was gonna throw a party in their residence.

The Sarek from the past fully agreed with her and, as her residence too, she had a right to bring guests as much as he, but the circumstances were different.

That morning Amanda had woken up feeling rested while Sarek had stayed up all night. It didn't matter how much he tried to concentrate to fall asleep, he just failed. He was not only frustrated due to irregular wakefulness but also, his inability to conceal any illogical demeanor. If his human assistant was able to point out something was off about his recent behavior without being bonded, he assumed all of that should be a really disorienting experience for Amanda.

Amanda stepped into the bedroom. She was radiant and visibly pleased by the event, it would take place later on their house while he was experiencing one of the worst days of his life.

"Sarek, get up," she said with her sing-song voice, grinning at him and clasping her hands.

"Ashayam."

"For how long will you be in bed? We have to get ready!"

Sarek arose in bed, sitting on the edge of his side and paying attention to Amanda hovering around the bedroom in her search for footwear and clothing for her incoming event.

"Your guests will be arriving in two point five hours. It is premature to get dressed for the occasion," he said.

It was not, but he just wanted to delay the inevitable. He felt his telepathic shields were getting weaker every day, which was not an issue when he was around perfectly self-controlled Vulcans with an impeccable emotional control but it would be complicated when Amanda's human friends were around. Humans full of emotions his low shields wouldn't be able to block for his disgrace.

"I love when you talk like that. _Two point five hours_... Sounds smart," she smirked.

She brushed her beautiful and soft brown hair in front of the mirror.

"What do you think I should wear? I was thinking on a yellow flowered dress I just bought last week or just human casual clothes," she asked to Sarek while still brushing her hair.

"What you think is appropriate is what you should wear," he replied.

"Sarek...I need your help," she insisted.

"I..."

She stood up and walked towards the wardrobe. He saw her searching inside and returning back to the mirror to compare how the clothing looked on her by putting it in front of her body in a way he thought It wouldn't provide an accurate image of how she would look wearing any of her options.

"I can't decide," Amanda said. "I'll try on the dress and you tell me what you think, can you?"

Sarek was about to reply, reiterating that she should wear what she considers more appropriate for the occasion when she began to remove her current clothes in his presence. He felt the heat spreading across his cheeks. Amanda appeared impossibly temptress. He wanted to not stare, but he was to weak too look away.

"Do you like this? I love this color, but maybe it's too much for a birthday party."

Amanda was too concentrated in her image in the mirror to notice he was craving to touch her. Recently, he had to deal with constant, inappropriate images featuring Amanda crowding his mind when he tried to meditate which was, equally, frustrating and overwhelming.

He breathed, but no relief came of it.

"Red or yellow? No, definitely this is way too much. Looks like I'm attending a meeting with you at some fancy place full of high-ranked officers instead of my friend's birthday."

"I agree."

"Really?"

He nodded his head, not actually paying attention to the conversation. Sarek couldn't care less about what she was going to wear, because the only thing he knew about, it was how much he wanted to rip off her clothes on site and mate with her.

Clothing was not required to perform that activity.

Sarek stopped his thoughts. Suddenly self-aware of its nature. He was afraid of himself and felt ashamed to think in Amanda in such lustful manner.

"I want you to meet them," she admitted, still looking at the mirror. "It is important to me."

"I am aware."

Since they met, Sarek became conscious of the human preference for introducing a sentimental partner to their friends, acquaintances and family with the intention to get along. It was beyond a mere formality, because humans actually expected that ritual was the beginning of a friendship and integration with their already existing social group.

Amanda turned to see him and walked towards Sarek, taking sit next to him in their bed.

His heart began to pound.

"It's been a long time; don't you think?"

"Your statement is ambiguous. I cannot determine what subject you are referring to."

Her beautiful fair eyes met his and Sarek couldn't deny how much he wanted to touch her, to explore every inch of her body and mind-meld.

"I don't understand you, Sarek. You avoid me, but I notice that you look at me when you believe I'm not paying attention."

He couldn't hide his surprise to her statement.

"Don't be a prude, Sarek," Amanda pointed out in a sharp tone that made him feel absolutely ashamed of himself and his lack of discretion. A wave of heat darkened his cheeks, a gesture Amanda took as a confirmation of her suspicions.

_Was he really that obvious?_

Sarek forced himself to not run away from the incoming argument. Basically, because that would be considered a way of admitting his guilt to Amanda. So, she'd be sure that he indeed was seeing her while he thought she was absent-minded.

Amanda wore a tiny smile, proud and defiant to catch him on the spot, "I know you, Sarek. Did you really believe I didn't notice?"

Her tone resembled accusatory rather than curious or confused due to his actions. It took him all his self-control to not show any sign of embarrassment, because she was aware of his improper behavior.

"I apologize," Sarek quickly replied. "My behavior was disrespectful and inappropriate."

Sarek did his best to not blush further in front of her, after he realized he just confessed. He never considered the possibility of being caught, even though he thought was being subtle but turned out he was not.

" _Why?_ "

"I do not understand your query."

Amanda felt odd to notice his evident bewilderment. Sarek thought she was equally dismayed and irritated.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"For my inappropriate behavior," Sarek started, hesitating, not so sure that it was the correct answer or the one she wanted to hear.

"For looking at me? For desiring your wife?" She asked, daring him to answer the question. "We're married, Sarek. You don't have to apologize for wanting to be with me."

"I..."

"I don't have a clue about Vulcan marriages, but we humans want to be intimate with our partner and not precisely just for reproductive motives. _I look at you_ , Sarek."

_Did she?_

His mind rambled while her words echoed inside his psyche, ' _I look at you_ '.

"I didn't mean to cause any distress to you."

"But you _did_. You do."

"It was not my intention to-"

"I'm still worried for you."

"Because we had not been recently engaged in any sexual activity?"

He'd have been lying if denied how much he desired to engage in intercourse with her. Even, it was distracting at work. Sarek spent more time he'd admit out loud with the mind full of indecorous images involving them in all kinds of scenarios.

Mr. Langdon was obviously worried for his mental well-being as far as he perceived and Sarek felt awfully grieved to catch himself thinking on misuse his Ambassador's office with Amanda, while the human man was probably believing he was ill. Recently, almost every single occasion Scott had to address him as 'Ambassador' to catch his attention Sarek was immersed thinking of Amanda in a manner that often made him want to blush.

He was eager to touch her. His hands felt tingling to her closeness and Amanda's sole presence was distracting and temptress. A bunch of images from past experiences with her came across, filling his mind against his will. He found himself recalling the essence of her soft brownish hair and the texture of her skin, her warm and soothing mental presence melting with his own as a delight.

"Well, _yeah_ , but you're missing the point." Amanda frowned, resembling severe and Sarek wished to swallow back his words. That last sentence was so out of place and sudden that he sounded desperate to engage in intercourse, a so un-Vulcan like behavior. "You know that's not what I'm talking about. I mean everything not just... _that._ "

He licked his lips nervously and clasped his hands on his lap, having not the slightest idea of how to proceed without getting into the actual issue. The sole thought of speaking about pon farr made him shudder.

"Should I be worried?" Her tone was flat, but he noticed the hidden concern.

It was a rhetorical question, as he acknowledged, which humans tended to use more often he'd like to, and the questioner didn't expect an actual reply.

The sharp look she gave him, made Sarek suspect it was an actual query.

Sarek knew it would be wise to decline his efforts to deny Amanda's logical concerns and just answer the question instead of pretend to be utterly oblivious, which Amanda and other humans perceived as insulting.

Vulcans were able to know the lack of disposition to speak about a topic from another individual. Instead of insist any further, they would only dismiss the subject while pointing out how illogical was not to discuss it.

"I must insist I'm still fit," Sarek replied.

" _Still? So,_ you're eventually gonna get worse?"

"I did not say that."

"You implied it. You said ' _still_ ',"

"I did not," Sarek replied.

"You sure about that?"

"I am, as I stated before."

She got closer and he was aware she was searching for any visible abnormality. Sarek deduced that Amanda was convinced he was suffering from a disease. Once she didn't find any actual symptom or sign of illness by sight, her eyes met his.

"Your friend's celebration will be in one hour. It would be wise to get ready as you requested prior."

Amanda let him pass without arguing, she didn't want to start a fight she couldn't win. Sarek was stubborn and Amanda knew pretty damn well he wouldn't say anything if he was unwilling to. Even try to would be an utter waste of energy. Also, it was way too early to deal with his lack of cooperation.

"Okay, as you wish, Mr. still-fit"

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

If he were less tired, he would feel kind of intrigued to witness that human celebration. Once the birthday man stepped into their residence, guided by his former partner Tara Williams, everyone shouted 'Happy birthday' at the same time.

He let out a sigh.

The collective high-pitched human voices were way too loud for Sarek's sensitive hearing. He was kind of surprised to see how many people were there to join the birth anniversary of Nathan Tremblay. He felt overwhelmed by the amount of individuals filling the living room and unconsciously got closer to Amanda, who was standing next to him. Sarek glanced at Amanda, who smiled and continued to stare at the scene of greetings and smiles.

She looked beautiful, _extremely_ beautiful.

His fingers tingled, eager to touch her, but that would be highly inappropriate so he put his hands behind his back.

Being around humans was always an exhausting task. Even after so many years of regular interaction with Terran citizens and a considerable time as acting Ambassador to Earth, he still had to shield himself totally to not catch their feelings. Whereof often disturbed his emotional control in the past, when he first visited Earth while working at the Vulcan embassy in Amanda's homeworld.

He was absent-minded until Amanda's voice reached him. His eyes looked Amanda's friends approaching.

"Amanda!"

"Tara!"

"Happy birthday, Nathan!" Amanda said.

Nathan smiled and Amanda got closer to hug him. Which was a harmless and friendly non-romantic human custom he had already witnessed before, but couldn't hold the jealousy that filled his chest as a burning rage against that man without any evident intention towards Amanda. Sarek recalled himself that physical contact between friends with no romantic attachments was common among human social circles and he had no place to feel _threatened_ through such triteness.

"Thank you!"

Amanda was visibly content and Sarek just remained in his place like if he were attached to the floor, rigid, tense and stoic as always observing the human social display in front of him.

He held his desire to frown and growl at Nathan by pressing his lips subtly. It would take him a second to grab the Human's neck, another one to break it and offer it as an offering to Amanda.

 _Amanda wouldn't be pleased._ _She would be scared,_ Sarek thought.

Vulcans considered physical contact as sacred and reserved only to bondmates and family. Humans were different in that matter. Of course, Sarek never expected Amanda to behave as a Vulcan woman, because it'd be unfair and illogical to ask her to give up such an important element of her identity and culture. Humans were a tactile species and be physically close to them meant the same as telepathic links and bonds for Vulcans. He'd never ask her not to do something belonging to her culture as much as she wouldn't ask him to shake hands with anyone.

His pon farr was affecting his judgement and ability to stay in peace.

The relief he felt when Amanda withdrew from Nathan's hug, back to his side, was indescribable.

Sarek was feeling less... _murderous._

He couldn't control himself and out of impulse, seeking comfort and motivated for a primitive desire to establish that Amanda was his mate, Sarek took her hand and stepped closer to her. Amanda gave him a strange look. Certainly, her human friends resembled baffled for such display of physical interaction between them.

"He's Sarek," Amanda said, excited. "These are my friends, Nathan and Tara."

"Wow! You're tall."

He already knew that information, but nodded before adding, "A pleasure to meet you".

Nathan's eyes looked at Sarek for a moment. A kind smile spread across his face and got close to shake Sarek's hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too."

Amanda giggled next to him. Sarek merely looked down at Nathan's hand in the air and regarded him without change his expressionless Vulcan façade.

Tara's eyes grew wider, noticing the lapse of judgment of Nathan and she softly touched his arm as a subtle way to tell him to desist his attempt to shake Sarek's hand.

"Hey! I'm right here," Amanda added playfully, openly laughing.

"Vulcans don't shake hands," Tara muttered. "Remember what Royer said about it."

Nathan looked horrified by his own actions and quickly desisted.

All his anger towards the human man vanished in the air. Amanda laughing at her friend because of his lapse of judgment and obvious forgetfulness of Vulcan social protocols, felt like cold water pouring over Sarek's head and he admitted to feeling comforted to observe Nathan's shame manifesting itself as a deep reddish blush.

"Oh, right. I-I'm too used to it. I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry, I'm nervous." Nathan stepped back, ashamed and blushed. "I didn't mean to do that. I'm so embarrassed, I don't work with Vulcans. I'd never meet one before in real life, which is odd because I'm living on Vulcan... and... I should stop talking now because I'm just doing this beyond uncomfortable for all of us."

"It is no matter."

"I forgive you for trying to kiss my husband," Amanda replied and Nathan's blush grew.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Amanda glanced around discreetly. Her friends seemed to have fun, but Sarek was nowhere to be seen. He was behaving oddly for sure, but it was more notorious when other people were around. It was not like the common Vulcan weirdness you would expect of an average member of the species. She thought it was more concerned than weird, because Sarek emotional control was falling apart a little bit every day in front of her eyes and his behavior swings were baffling.

Sarek was not being himself at all.

Also, even though Amanda couldn't feel anything through the bond because Sarek shielded, she knew he felt jealous of her friend Nathan.

Something so out of his character.

She thought she'd be jealous of Nathan because he almost Vulcan-kissed Sarek in her presence, but she was too concerned to laugh.

No matter how much she did want to know what was happening, she found herself totally clueless.

_Why he was being so avoidant?_

That was driving her crazy.

Amanda was convinced that he'd a Vulcan disease. She wished to be able to ask to other Vulcans what could be the reason behind Sarek's behavior, but they weren't the kind of people who openly would talk about everything. If Sarek, who was her husband was reluctant to tell her, what she could expect from a stranger? Sadly, they were obsessively private because she didn't find information about Vulcan diseases anywhere.

Just useless basic information about the biology that was irrelevant and vague.

"Hey, Amanda."

Tara's voice brought her back to reality, she was standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by the people she met in Vulcan.

"Tara," Amanda said, smirking. "Are you having fun?"

"I gotta say thank you for hosting the party. Nathan and I, y'know... It's important to me."

"No need to thank."

"No, I must insist... Thank you, Amanda."

"We're friends," Amanda said.

"...And thanks to Sarek too. It must be kinda weird for him since Vulcans don't celebrate birthdays. This party must be a total nonsense for a Vulcan," Tara joked.

"He's learned a lot about human culture and custom. It's basically his job," she explained.

"Right."

"How do you feel?" Amanda asked. "How is your first year on Vulcan going? I remember when I moved to Vulcan. It was not so long ago, but it was tough, honestly."

Back then, she didn't care to leave behind her old job as a teacher in early grades of elementary school and move far away from home. Her heart felt warmer remembering her first day on Vulcan and how easy felt to take that decision, like the logical succession of a numerical sequence.

"I'm not a big fan of Vulcan's hell-like weather, but I like this place a lot, because of my job and my friends here, " Tara replied. "How did you feel your first year here? Our circumstances were different. I came here alone because of my job and you were here married to a Vulcan ambassador."

Amanda smiled.

Tara was implying that her stay on Vulcan was easy because of that but It was not. She couldn't hold a laugh, her first year as human in Vulcan was an utter mess and be married to a Vulcan was half of the motive of it.

"I struggled a lot, Sarek and I had a lot of misunderstandings and cultural shocks during our first year of marriage," Amanda explained.

"Must be tough. I've never gone through something similar. Once I dated an Andorian and Nathan is Canadian, but there was not much difference like between you and Sarek."

"It is," Amanda nodded.

She never actually stopped to think of it. Vulcans and humans could seem so physically alike, despite the pointy ears and their taste in haircuts, but were completely opposite in their way.

Amanda sipped her juice, sighed and looked around the room.

"Sometimes, I feel like I don't understand him..."

Amanda didn't want to say out loud, but was the way she truly felt. She felt kind of hurt by Sarek's reluctance to talk to her. However, she suspected that it was something beyond his control and a source of great shame for him for unknown reasons.

"Oh."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that." Amanda forced a smile to alleviate tension. "Never mind."

Tara nodded and looked around confused.

"By the way... where's he? I haven't seen him since Nathan tried to Vulcan-kiss him for what he's truly sorry."

_Sarek._

"That's a good question."

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Sarek blinked twice, utterly disoriented and irritated. He was sitting on the comfortable sofa of his studio, where the music and the turmoil of the humans felt just like a whisper in his sensitive ears. He sighed and sunk on the sofa. He wanted to sleep a little bit to distract himself. The disarray, he had been experimenting the last two days go away for a moment and his mind went blank.

Sarek spent the past weeks desirous of mental silence, but turned out it was not a peaceful feeling at all.

It was more like if his mind was disconnected from reality.

Pon farr was a curious state. Sarek was utterly aware of how illogical was not to tell his wife about his condition, but, that irrational feeling of shame filled him and his own stubbornness told him that he was still in control.

Which, he clearly had lost a while ago.

It was a contradictory state of mental imbalance. The more he got immersed in it, more rational and reasonable seemed to behave in a manner his normal self would catalog as highly illogical.

Secretly, Sarek was glad Amanda didn't know about pon farr because a Vulcan woman instantly would have known and he would feel humiliated. Not telling Amanda was plainly irresponsible and dishonest, but he naively believed pon farr wouldn't approach as when he remained unbonded prior meeting Amanda. The irresistible urges he'd had were reasonable as an unbonded male and he thought that once he was married and sharing a telepathic link, pon farr would show mercy and would be able to control himself and get rid of it with meditation.

How wrong he was.

_So naïve._

Sarek needed to try again to meditate. Even, when meditation was proven to be completely inefficient alleviating his impulses, but the hustle was a trammel to achieve the minimal mental calm he required to rest without going in-and-out of sleep. Which was beyond bothersome and he preferred to avoid by not sleeping at all, because at the end, he would be frustrated and still restless.

He stood up from the sofa and sat on the soft reddish rug of his studio, slowly remembered how to proceed and accommodated to meditate.

He breathed deeply, closing his eyes.

His sense of time was compromised and his assistant was not around to provide reminders of the time. It didn't feel any calm or betterment. His mind wasn't settled after an uncertain amount of time meditating alone.

The only thing he encountered was a dark, lonely and plain silent. The kind of silence that invites to get lost at the edges of consciousness, to overanalyze every second of his life and wander in the irrationality until get used to it. A tempting silent full of his feelings and desires, that merge together to create irresistible impulses _enhanced_ by pon farr.

His hands tingled, anxious and needful of contact.

Sarek wanted to act upon his feelings, to embrace his impulses and throw away the last glimpse of logic its remain attached to him but he knew he couldn't do that for everyone's sake. Because, acting upon his urges would mean to break Amanda's friend's neck just to dare to stare at her, to get involved in a physical fight with Tellar Prime's Ambassador if he dared to approach him to argue at the interplanetary meeting or hurting his beloved Amanda

He felt absolutely defeated at that point. Every attempt to soothe his psyche and calm the hunger he had for violence and mating due to his biology were unsuccessful.

Sarek _had failed._

He had failed as Vulcan and a husband. The shame, a _feeling_ , was the main obstacle to tell Amanda about his condition. Which was blatantly dishonest, because she asked him in a numerous amount of occasions if he was fit or directly, demanded an explanation she merely deserved as his wife. Instead, she got nothing but avoidant replies.

He had failed to her.

Sarek laid down on the rug, feeling the soft texture in his pointy ear while he rested his head on the floor.

Meditation was useless.

Sleeping was inefficient and just worked while he was not awake.

_What options do he have?_

_What else he could do?_

_What else he could try?_

_What else...?_

_Chocolate._

Every Vulcan method has failed to assist him. Perhaps, other options would success where Vulcan methods had miserably failed. As ambassador to Earth and an ex-resident of said planet, he'd witnessed of a variety of human customs. Most of them, highly illogical like consuming alcoholic drinks with the only purpose to affect their mental faculties.

Sarek saw humans losing consciousness due to reckless alcohol consume. Of course, he couldn't get intoxicated by consuming alcohol like humans, but, he could replicate the results ingesting chocolate. He swallowed, the sole idea of getting intoxicated in a desperate seek for a mental relief was absurd and illogical.

_Was it?_

The _pon farr_ was taking over his sanity.

He continued to tell himself the irrationality and lack of logic in his ideas, desires or feelings but he didn't mean it anymore. He knew it was wrong, but didn't actually believe it.

The common sense was fading in the irrationality of pon farr.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

The party was over.

Amanda stepped into every room of the house searching for Sarek. After the awkward meeting with her human friends, Sarek had run away from her sight. Amanda admitted that his first encounter with Nathan was embarrassing and rather uncomfortable for a Vulcan but was not that bad. Perhaps, he didn't agree and Nathan's attempt to Vulcan-kiss him was too uncomfortable to stand being in the same room. So, he decided to excuse himself by saying he was thirsty with an untouched glass of juice in his right hand. She didn't say anything but get somewhat concerned for his absence. She neither could feel their bond anymore, the pacific and calm presence of Sarek in the back of her mind was gone leaving plain lonely silence and a cold void.

Lately, it was not exactly a calm presence, but a turmoil. Sarek was restless, almost every time Amanda was able to feel his feelings and when they slept close to each other, she could feel relief dripping from their bond due to closeness as if Sarek needed her to feel safe.

Amanda felt a hint of insecurity and jealousy coming from him whenever she was around other individuals. She'd expected to deal with any of that during the party, but he never voiced any of his feelings about it and run away from the situation. Sarek never ever did a scene out of jealousy before and not even, felt that emotion pouring through the bond as she did in more recent times.

All of sudden, Amanda felt Sarek's presence again, but was something different about that. She was able to know he was upstairs in their bedroom, more she got closer, she perceived a wave of dizziness and sleepiness coming from Sarek, she didn't feel it in her own but was aware that he was feeling like that, which was unsettling

She hurried up and walked inside of the room they shared. The curtains were closed as she expected and when her sight examined the room, noticed a lump under the sheets.

It was Sarek.

She sat on the edge of the bed meanwhile she heard her husband breath under the sheets and she didn't need to be a detective to know he was highly intoxicated. She never thought she'd to take care of a very drunk Vulcan. Of course, it wasn't the first time she'd seen him not sober, but that was the very first time she knew he voluntarily put himself in that state. Amanda should've known when Lila told her that Nathan's chocolate cake was missing. A beautiful triple chocolate cake bought in a really fancy bakery at the alien district, she didn't mind because she ordered a red velvet one too just to honor the candle wish tradition. The Vulcan hell-like weather made the cake a less appealing option to consume and everyone preferred drinks over sweetened bread.

There, sat on her bed with an unconscious Vulcan lump under the sheets, she thought how weird it was the whole damn situation. Sarek was behaving like a reckless undergrad with alcoholic tendencies on a Friday night instead of the Vulcan ambassador he was.

Why the hell he got drunk on purpose?

Amanda noticed metallic empty wrappers of fancy chocolate bars she was saving under the kitchen counter for recipes she wanted to do, in Sarek's nightstand.

"Sarek," she called him but the lump not responded. His calm breath noise suggested he was sleeping deeply.

When she touched his shoulder to shake him a little bit, he groaned, waking up lethargic of his unconscious state.

"Found you!" Amanda said playfully, pulling out the sheets. He rolled over and met her gaze, blinking couldn't hold the scrap of irritation he felt to be woken up, when he intended to sleep. The room was spinning, and so blurred that Sarek felt like staying awake was impossible for any longer, immediately felt the urge to close his eyes and fall into a state of total unconsciousness.

"Amanda." Sarek tried to look as innocent as he could, but no one would believe he just ate a whole cake and chocolate bars by accident so he gave up his intentions to seek for an excuse.

"Are you gonna tell or I'll have to ask what it is happening to you?"

"I can explain it," Sarek began, but realizing his speech was slurring, he stopped. His mind was disconnected and the chocolate inhibited his capacity to answer coherently.

"You ate my chocolate and Nathan's birthday cake, didn't you?"

"I did," he said in a whisper. " _I did."_

Amanda saw Sarek closing his eyes like staying awake were incredibly difficult. She held his cheek in her hand, shocked and confused to see Sarek passing out due to drunkenness. For the first time in weeks, she felt Sarek's side of the bond in absolute calm and as quiet as he always was.

And Amanda understood it.

Sarek only wanted to sleep and, in some twisted and lacking of logic way being drunk was the only path to achieve that goal. What was so disturbing to the point he couldn't even sleep, eat or work? Amanda also noticed Sarek totally abandoned his meditation schedule weeks ago.

Amanda went downstairs to ask Lila for a waste bin for Sarek and with the young woman's help, rolled him over to the edge of the bed close to the bin. Meanwhile the Vulcan moaned uncomfortable to be disturbed. Lila's expression was of horror and shock, she even seemed ashamed on Sarek's behalf but Amanda didn't mind. She loved Sarek, but she needed help to move him and was his fault for not being honest with her about whatever was happening to him.

Amanda stayed up to have an eye on him, Sarek slept without interruption until 3 in the morning, when he woke up feeling really sick. He spent the rest of the early morning in the bathroom while Amanda continued reading a digital magazine about gardening.

She came to check if he was still alive just to find him sleeping near to the toilet. He arose feeling her presence and like a zombie, forced himself to get ready for work. If he were human, he would have rolled his eyes irritated to the thought of wearing that awfully uncomfortable ambassador robe with its high collar that did every word rumble in an annoying echo.

"You're gonna be late, Ambassador." She teased him with her arms crossed on her chest in open disapproval.

Sarek glanced at her clearly irritated and continued to get dressed in his uncomfortable Ambassador robes after a quick sonic shower. Amanda got closer and helped him to button his high collar, just to notice how impaired he resembled not only due to his obvious hungover but all. Sarek lowered his eyes as soon as she went near to him, as if he was expecting some sort of reaction from her part.

"Amanda-"

"We're gonna talk tonight. Now, go and shake hands with those high-ranked officers."


	6. Outburst

That morning Sarek showed up one hour later at the embassy. He didn't notice until his assistant's clock on his desk, let him know. His sense of time was compromised and he couldn't care less. Meditation had failed him and sleeping worked quite well... for a limited amount of time. His mind was a complete disarray, sleeping was becoming as useless as meditation, and his emotional control was falling apart. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how it was to be in absolute control of his emotions and thoughts.

Sarek felt like throwing up, dehydrated and extremely exhausted. He didn't actually expect to feel that unwell, the last time he got drunk on Earth was _utterly_ different. His stomach ached and churned to the sole thought of even drink plain water. But did not matter how bad he was feeling, by the inside he'd enjoyed so much those hours of non-interrupted sleep he'd had prior to wake up nauseous.

"Ambassador."

He heard his assistant's voice, but didn't react. His head was pounding and the lights felt oddly brighter than ever.

"Is everything alright, Ambassador?"

Why Mr. Langdon suddenly became _so_ bothersome? He had worked in his office the last two years without any inconvenience, but recently, Sarek found him —In human terms—annoying. Sarek was aware that the young man was baffled for his behavior twist and most of his interaction with him was based on that feeling. However, he felt exposed in a way he didn't want to in front a co-worker. It was less distressing as he was human, because he wouldn't be able to find out the source of his erratic behavior, but still was irritating to be that obvious.

Sarek was feeling uncomfortable. 'Uncomfortable' was a lax euphemism to name his bad mood. His telepathic shields were low, the lack of effective meditation or sleep was obvious and he was feeling irritated.

His mind was weakened.

A few days ago, he wanted to hide in his office. Now, he wanted to disappear and be as far as possible of any sentiment being, but Amanda. His almost non-existent telepathic shields weren't protecting him of perceiving the feelings of people around him.

" _Ambassador_..."

"I am fit, Mr. Langdon."

"The transportation has arrived, Ambassador."

Sarek nodded his head and both left.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Scott Langdon knew his day was going to be messed up when Ambassador Sarek stepped into the embassy an hour late and looking like he had drunk a chocolate yard glass last night. He'd flashbacks of his human roommate on Earth with rather pronounced alcoholic tendencies looking like that, the day after crazy parties full of feckless drunkards.

What on earth was happening to him? He could expect that sort of behavior from anyone else but Ambassador Sarek. It was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Was Ambassador Sarek so careless to attend with hungover to such important meeting? If his Vulcan boss was openly behaving like that, he knew he couldn't expect any decency from anyone ever. He'd had so many horrible bosses during all his still-building career from rude people to totally irresponsible. When he began to work at the Vulcan embassy with Ambassador Sarek, he thought it was too good to be true. Recently, it was almost impossible to work along with him, because Sarek was slowly losing his Vulcan coolness. Sometimes, he was too tense and was way too critical of his professional performance that Scott wished to take the next shuttle back to Earth. Meanwhile the next day, he'd be sleeping at his desk with a PADD beeping full of unanswered messages from high-ranked people, not telling him what he should do next and not giving a damn if he spent the whole day drinking coffee or chatting with Kylie Smith about him.

 _He's Vulcan_. _There must be some logic in all of this, Scott recalled._

Maybe, he was actually sick, but was responsible enough to attend to that meeting. Nonetheless, that thought would be a huge denial because he just couldn't ignore that characteristic sickness expression all species he had ever met wore after a night of excess and poor choices.

The meeting would take place in a really fancy hotel near by the embassy. A lot of Ambassadors and Starfleet people would be attending to discuss deals renovations. Scott would rather opt to walk by foot to the meeting place instead of sharing transport with Ambassador Sarek because seeing him in such state was distressing. Probably, the most uncomfortable thirty minutes of his life. No matter how much he wanted to believe that his boss was suffering from an illness, it was clear he was not. Scott saw Sarek stare blankly through the corner of his eye and he couldn't tell if he was bored or tired. It wasn't like usual Vulcan seriousness. Sarek seemed absent-minded and his face reflected a deep inner conflict. The young Vulcan man who would be their driver to the meeting place looked discreetly baffled to acknowledge something he wasn't capable of detecting. If he didn't know better, Scott would have thought the Vulcan driver was uncomfortable.

"Am I a novelty to you, Mr. Langdon?" Sarek's voice reached him. The realization of the strain and evident irritation he noticed was shocking.

Scott blinked, realizing ashamed that he'd been staring directly at Sarek. Quickly, a reddish flush covered his cheekbones as he stammered an apologize.

Was hostility what he heard on Ambassador's voice? Definitely, _yes._

He was irritated by his behavior.

 _Better be careful_ , Scott said to himself. Kylie's words about the Vulcan superior strength echoed as a warning in his head. The Vulcan's deep eyes focused on an imaginary point in front of him. The human's heart began to race out of discomfort, while he discarded small talk to alleviate tension. Ambassador's face stated out loud he was in a bad mood and was not the best idea to prove the resilience of his patience.

When they arrived Scott stood outside, staring the facade of the building for a brief moment, wondering how much would cost a night in that place. The entrance of the hotel was full of people going in and out of the building and he felt out of place too quickly. His sober human fashioned outfit resembled so boring alongside the flamboyant alien fashion who almost every attendant was wearing, including Ambassador Sarek, who could be in the verge of losing his mind but, always up for those over-the top outfits with high collars and intricate details.

The fresh air hit him once he was inside of the building, an interesting opposite to the extreme hot weather of Vulcan. Definitely, a place adapted to the comfort standards of other humanoid species around the galaxy. His eyes looked around and he sighed deeply, acknowledging Starfleet officers in the lobby. Then, remembered he was not there alone and searched for Ambassador Sarek whereabouts, but instead, he saw Kylie Smith approaching.

"Hey."

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, they need some help with all those people here and I suspect T'rak didn't want to be here alone around all those officers. Did you know most of the guests are from Starfleet?"

"Ambassador Sarek told me something related to." He didn't, but Scott inferred it by reading all his boss' mails while rewriting his poorly redacted replies.

The only mention of his boss' name made him shudder, he glanced around holding his breath, but Sarek was nowhere to be seen. Kylie seemed puzzled and amused to see his nervousness. His always wise gut feeling told him that Ambassador Sarek was two conversations away from getting in a fight or an argument and Scott was not eager to be the chosen one.

"So, you're just here to shake other people's hands on his behalf. Well, after all you said about his moodiness I guess it's not that weird he didn't come, Ambassador Sovek can handle it."

"No, he did come," Scott said.

"Where is he? All his colleagues were already here like an hour and a half ago."

"I don't have a clue," the man replied, unease.

Scott glanced tactfully and got closer to Kylie, but not enough to offend any Vulcan nearby the lobby.

"Hey, what's going on? You look tense."

"He's hungover."

"No way."

"I swear on my life!"

"Why he would do that? I mean, I never believed that Vulcans are always so boring, but I don't think getting drunk is something a Vulcan would do," Kylie said, narrowing her eyes like she didn't believe any of what he was saying. He didn't blame her, it was so surreal and before Scott could reply, she added, "There's no logic in getting drunk."

"There's no logic in anything he's done the past weeks."

"Why do you worry so much about it? The one who's gonna' probably throw up over a high-ranked officer of Starfleet or an alien ambassador is him, not you. Let him be," Kylie said like if was that easy. Of course, she hadn't had to deal with a moody Vulcan boss that was wavering between the most blatant disregard to the absolute stiffness.

" _Ugh, hell_ no. I don't want to see that. Since he is Vulcan all of this feels so weird."

Witnessing a Vulcan turning into some kind of moody pointy-eared bastard was disturbing, but when that Vulcan turned out to be a respectable figure as Ambassador Sarek was, the spectacle was even less pleasing.

"I don't know what is so troubling about it," she said.

"He's been horrible. The other day, he seemed like he was gonna' get me fired for taking _'so much_ ' time in lunch break and the next day, he didn't give a damn about nothing... Even though, we were delayed to send a response to a Starfleet guy."

' _Lunch break, it is meant to fulfill nutritional needs, it is not time for leisure, Mr. Langdon._ '

' _Duty hours are not bedtime, Ambassador_ Sarek', he'd wanted to reply defiantly, but bit his tongue because he didn't want to be beaten up back to Earth.

That would be _awful_.

"And now, he's coming to a really important meeting like this."

"Exactly."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Not calling you a liar, but, I don't believe any of this makes sense. So, one day he just changed?"

Scott sighed.

She had a point, any of that made sense on any level. After two years of working with him, he never expected that kind of turnaround from Ambassador Sarek.

_Was he losing his mind?_

"Do you doubt me? Did you hear me when I told you he almost yelled at me for not doing something he forgot to tell me to do?"

"I can't imagine a Vulcan yelling, honestly."

The horror and shock he felt to see a stoic and always expressionless Vulcan as Ambassador Sarek, showing not so subtle signs of shame by blushing in front of him was something he'd remember in his death bed. After that, things were even more uncomfortable and Sarek avoided talking to him during a whole week for his relief. He seemed to be constantly tensed. Somehow, Scott's nervousness caused some sort of additional distress in the Vulcan as far as he if his feelings were affecting him in an incomprehensible way. Scott deemed the possibility of him reading his mind or something similar, but Vulcans were touch telepaths and the Ambassador was never that near enough to touch him and take a tour through his mind.

"Maybe, he is..."

"What?"

"Maybe, he's having trouble in paradise."

The human thought it was a logical theory. Perhaps, his marriage was crashing and was the reason for his odd demeanor. Was he just a depressed Vulcan in the middle of a marital breakup? The hungover, his irritability, the preference for sleeping all day and his poor performance at work. If he were human, of course, not fair enough for a Vulcan. He found hard to imagine Ambassador Sarek getting drunk alone in the floor of his kitchen until passing out.

Sarek was so tense and irritated that Scott felt terrified to be around. His wife wouldn't be attending to his side of the meeting and hadn't go to visit him at the embassy in a considerable amount of time. But, still was hard to believe. Vulcans used to deal with loss and distress more discreetly than any other species. Emotional display and unprofessional behavior it was something they wouldn't engage into without a good reason.

"You're doomed, Scott. You have a special power to attract horrible bosses. If he throws up over a high-ranked guy it's gonna be really uncomfortable but, at least, he's not drunk."

"Thanks for the support, Kylie. You always know what to say," he said acerbic.

"I'm so lovely, I know. No need to thank me."

"This is gonna' be a mess."

" _You can bet_."

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Sarek looked himself in the mirror and tried to figure out how to look less deteriorated, while buttoning back his high collar. His haircut honoring Surak was not as perfect as usual and he regretted not to cut it properly. The dark circles of his eyes were evident. His glassy eyes reflected how mentally tired he felt.

He was too tense around everyone but, even more, around Vulcan fellows, who could point out the source of his general disarray. He was certain they wouldn't say anything out loud but, the humiliation would burn him forever. Did Ambassador Sovek know? How unsettling was to talk to him. Besides his compromised capacity to concentrate, Sarek felt that Sovek judged him all the time they talked. Even, he felt attacked when Ambassador Sovek corrected him during their conversation and say in a flat emotionless tone that he seemed misinformed about the quadrants' current state. He'd stayed quiet, not so sure what to reply and focusing his energy in not showing any hint of emotion as he'd done around his human assistant time a time. The man was older than him, not like his parent's age but neither close to his. Therefore, he was severe and blunt, as an average Vulcan should be, but he couldn't hold the distasteful feelings that came across as consequence of Ambassador Sovek remarking an evident fact.

Sarek walked out of the lavatory feeling slightly better but still too dizzy to think properly. He was so tired that he considered escaping from his responsibilities as a temptress option but he'd to deal the consequences of his own actions.

The lobby temperature was too cold for a Vulcan. He shuddered and the urge of fleeing got worse. It would be so irresponsible and inappropriate to leave and he was not in the mood to explain himself or make an excuse believable enough. His mind was rambling when his assistant appeared out of the nowhere, looking reluctant to interact with him. Sarek wanted to behave civilized and apologize for his earlier unjustified outburst, but he didn't find the words before getting into the meeting room.

Were he human, Sarek would've swore under his breath once he stepped into the room as a result of the displeasing cold temperature that greeted him. Feeling Scott's eyes on him, Sarek gave him a look and before the young human could even pronounce a single word in regard to his obvious state, both of them turned their eyes to the entrance of the room hearing the voice of Ambassador Noraag arguing with his aide.

Sarek didn't even try to hide his displeasure, and did what the human recognized as the Vulcan equivalent to roll the eyes, before walking to take his seat in the room leaving Scott absolutely astonished.

* * *

**[...]**

* * *

Sarek's job was done, but the event wasn't over yet. He drank the plain water in his glass, recognizing his human assistant's figure immersed in conversation with another human and an Andorian aide of the Andorian Ambassador to Vulcan. He recognized and was grateful for Langdon's ability to read him and his wisdom to stay apart from him during all those hard days.

Humans were easy to read. Also, quite skilled reading others. If he didn't know better, He'd thought they possessed some sort of special skill to recognize emotion and feelings. Sarek's less favorite part of his job was to partake in unnecessary social gathering and he always preferred to be straightforward as Vulcans tended to be, but as an interplanetary ambassador, he had to.

Tellarite Ambassador Noraag was not exactly a rude man. Undoubtedly, he had a strong presence in every room he stepped into. Amanda had said he surely kind of liked to tease him, but Sarek was inclined to think he just wanted to elicit an emotional response from him like other individuals had tried before. He had lost count how many times he had been involved in one-sided arguments with Ambassador Noraag. Not even a single time, he felt personally alluded, but in the verge of Pon Farr induced insanity, Sarek knew he wouldn't be able to control himself and keep the Vulcan coolness for so much longer. He was feeling aggressive and irritable, like it wasn't enough to feel the consequences of chocolate consumption, he had to stand disrespectful gestures and uncomfortable stares at his pointy ears. Sarek had witnessed humans holding a conversation with Andorians without point out their antennae not even once, while trying to not stare directly at him like he was a novelty. A curious phenomenon, because Andorians were significantly physically different to humans. It was illogical to feel amazed to a species with less anatomical differences like Vulcans. Probably, Vulcans' fault for not to immerse themselves inside interspecies activities, as Amanda had said one time, Vulcans preferred stick to themselves and they were clearly apart to other Federation species, which was perceived as a gesture of low-key hostility.

He sighed with relief when he finished his sixth glass of water. He was beyond bored of all the unnecessary social interaction, Ambassador Ashreraa just had left after praise his participation at the meeting where all Ambassadors and Starfleet were discussing the reason that brought them there in the first place: politics. Sarek felt awfully to acknowledge he was hiding in the drinks table to avoid any interaction and Ambassador Noraag, who seemed pleased to see him again for his sorrow. Even, He had the audacity to ask him to calm down when he defended his arguments with more emphasis he would have liked to, and when he eyed the reaction of his fellow diplomats, who silently agreed with Noraang, he wanted to return to pre-surakian times when Vulcans were less civilized. Sarek had opened his mouth to reply a lot more heated, but he forced himself to seem collected as soon as noticed Ambassador Sovek's deep dark eyes staring in him with disapproval masked under thick layers of stoicism.

A Tellarite wouldn't _lecture_ him about calm and measured behavior. At least, not Ambassador Noraag.

He was refilling his glass when he saw Ambassador Noraag and Ambassador Laurie approaching to him, triggering his fight or fly response, but his compromised ability to react forced him to stay and before he could even concrete a simple thought, it was already too late.

"Ambassador Sarek," greeted Ambassador Noraang with a perfect V-shape gesture as well as Ambassador Laurie did. The Tellarite was wearing an ambiguous facial expression, an expectable action of an illogical being, but was infuriating how puzzled he felt due to the subtle smile he was offering to him.

 _Was he pleased to see him? Why he would be pleased for his presence after he almost shouted at him in front of all those important figures_?

"Ambassador Laurie, Ambassador Noraag," Sarek managed to say, not so eager to talk about political conflicts and space drama.

"Ambassador Laurie and I were discussing your arguments against Federation intervention in Yuuksan's political conflict."

"A reasonable take on the matter," said Ambassador Laurie. "I agree. I don't think getting involved or Federation openly taking a side is gonna be helpful in any way."

The conversation would had remained civilized if Ambassador Noraag wasn't there. He had met Ambassador Laurie last year in a meeting in Andoria. He'd a positive opinion of the man and found his company not as distressing as other fellow diplomats like Ambassador Noraag or Ambassador Sok, who was cheerful, but _too_ attached to physical affection.

"I totally disagree with Ambassador Sarek," said the Tellarite man.

It took all his decreasing sanity to not sigh. Suddenly, Ambassador Sok's hugs and physical gestures seemed so pleasant compared to Noraag's natural desire for arguing with him.

Laurie seemed unsurprised to that statement, and Noorag directed his eyes briefly to Laurie before returning to reply to Sarek's argument.

"If the Federation doesn't intervene at this point of the conflict. The whole system could, and will be affected."

"Federation cannot partake in this matter."

"It's irresponsible to not interfering. Especially when Yuuksan's conflict resembles so much other we had heard of that escalated to become bigger issues to complete systems or entire quadrants. _Had you forgotten about, Ambassador Sarek?_ "

The words echoed in his mind, triggering an unpleasant feeling in his chest. He contained his desire for simple walk away and repressed the tingling sensation in his fingers.

Sarek sighed and felt his mouth dry as Vulcan's deserts.

Noorag was openly challenging him, he had to resist the urge to listen to his irrational inner voice and remain balanced while in the verge of losing emotional control.

"If you're referring to Nausicaans, that conflict got solved privately without intervention," Sarek replied dryly.

"The conflict would had lasted less with Federation's help, but like in this occasion, Vulcan Ambassadors voted against and Federation did nothing."

"Which was a reasonable position. Nausicaans were going through tense moments and a couple of disagreements, but partaking would only had led to heat things up, Noorag, " added Ambassador Laurie, reiterating his position on the topic. As Sarek expected of him, Laurie was cordial, collected and perceptive, but not subtle in his attempts to soothe the tension of their conversation.

He'd had to bring back to his mind his father's words of Tellarites being an assertive, but peaceful species.

 _Arguing it's their way of socially interact with their peers, Sarek._ _No offense shall be taken._

"As Ambassador Laurie says, an intervention on Yuuksan's political affairs would be unwise and has high probabilities of failure."

Ambassador Noraag did a dismissive noise and Sarek wished Amanda to be there to convey calm through their bond. So he could bear all that more efficiently, but he had chosen to conceal the truth to her.

"I thought you would provide _logical_ arguments, Sarek of Vulcan."

"Federation regulation has clauses against intervention on political affairs of a planet for not justified reasons"

"Quote regulation, a very _Vulcan_ move."

Sarek outright frowned. A gesture that horrified Ambassador Laurie, who failed to hide his surprise to a Vulcan showing such explicit display of emotion in public.

Noorang's words sounded acerbic and extremely rude. Sarek gulped in a failed attempt to brought inner peace to his increasing burning rage. _How he dared to speak to him in that manner? Who he thought he was?_ He'd had enough.

Sarek was done concealing his feelings. He was fed up of act logically in an environment where he was being constantly disrespected. The logical and collected inner voice that guided all his actions disappeared, leaving pure raw rage behind. If Ambassador Noraag wanted an emotional response, then he — _logically_ — would have to provide one.

" _Calm down, Sarek_." Ambassador Noraag's voice was like a faded echo in the air, even Laurie's concerned expression didn't bring him back to his normal state of repression.

The sound when Sarek threw his glass filled with water attracted the attention of the guests who were closer to the scene.

"There's no need to take things personally-"

The Tellarite didn't stepped back, Laurie was practically frozen in his place as the guests around.

" _Is he growling?_ " Someone said in the crowd with a shock-filled voice that brought to Sarek enough lucidity to confirm that he, indeed, was growling. No one nearby really intervened, most of them out of pure incredulity. Of course, heated arguments at meetings and a couple of physical altercation were not novelties between diplomats, but a Vulcan starting a fight was —definitely— a novelty.

"I thought Vulcans were logical. What a disappointment- " Sarek heard Laurie trying to calm him without physically intercede, which was a wise move because after Ambassador Noraag pointed out the lack of logic in his overreaction, something inside him was broken. He zoned out, drunk with unbearable, uncontrollable feelings bleeding and his feverish mind unable to think straight.

He was dizzy and disoriented with anger.

" _Ambassador!_ "

" _Stop!"_

"That's not the way of Vulcan," stated in Vulcan the cold voice of Ambassador Sovek, while putting his hand on Sarek's shoulder, stopping his rapture at once.

He recovered some consciousness for a brief moment, noticing his assistant's expression of fear in the crowd around them and the fact that he was being held by, at least, three individuals. The severe facial expression and sharp look Ambassador Sovek was giving him felt like the most offensive insult in Sarek's eyes. The crowd went silent as he exchanged looks with Sovek and when he sensed the older Vulcan's grab tightening as he began to move to remove his hand off him. He felt threatened. Sarek knew what he was going to do next and Sarek couldn't allow that.

_No, no, no… no!_

He was going to nerve pinch him.

"Release me," demanded Sarek, flailing clearly enraged.

The rage spread like fire, making his blood boil. His hands were tingling and he felt inside of a hole of confusion previous to realize that his hands were shaking without control. The multitude emitted a gasp of surprise, as he acknowledged that what was happening in front of all his colleagues and fellow Vulcans, a part of the most important and secretive biological event in a Vulcan adult male was being exhibited to a bunch of strangers. A crude display of pure horror in his face, followed that realization along with all sorts of emotions bursting; shame, rage, guilt, humiliation. Ambassador Sovek didn't even blink, Sarek blushed and without trepidation the older Vulcan dragged him all the way out of the reception room effortlessly while he tussled attracting more unwanted attention.

" _Release me!_ "

Sarek continued to tussle until they were far away from the rest of the attendees. Ambassador Sovek released him and stepped back wearing a not so subtle expression of displeasure, as if Sarek was contaminated.

" _Collect yourself, Ambassador Sarek._ "

He walked towards Sovek, who didn't hesitate to push him and added with a cold distant voice, "...and solve your _condition_."

_He knew._

Once those words hit him, he gulped and practically ran away to Ambassador Sovek's sight. His cheeks were burning with shame and the remain pieces of his dignity falling apart.


	7. Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait. It struggled a lot writing this chapter. I need to clarify that this story was never meant to be explicit, since it was first published on FF.net (A site that doesn’t allow explicit content) way before even opening an account on AO3. So, this chapter might be a little disappointing to some readers, which I understand due to the central theme and the nature of the pon farr itself.

Sarek was vibrating of anger, his emotions were bursting out of him. He could cry and break everything in his sight without hesitation. He walked away from the building trembling. His rage was evolving into an unbearable feeling of anxiety. As soon as he took a seat nearby a flower box, his hands were shaking again out of control.

The low temperature of the night, along with the overwhelming mix of mental turmoil, physical tiredness and an entire day pretending to be a balanced Vulcan, made Sarek lost the track of the time. Thus, it was already too late and the Vulcan sun was not in sight. The cold temperature brought a brief moment of clarity, only to realize that he didn’t know what he should do next, or how he would to return to his residence. Sarek needed to call a transportation unit, but his phone was lost and going back to the reception room to ask his assistant to call one, it was not an option. The sole thought of messing everything up, doing all he had intended to avoid, only contributed to increase his distress. Sarek had been dishonest with his beloved Amanda. Also, blatantly irrational, illogical and weak. He had failed in every aspect. How was he supposed to interact with his colleagues ever again after being exposed in that way?

Sarek inhaled and exhaled, no lull came to him, only a stream of burning shame and disgust towards himself.

He gulped.

Suddenly, he felt too sick of his way of handling the whole situation from the beginning, when a wave of nausea hit him. The next he knew it was that he was throwing up all over the flower box.

“Do you require any assistance?” The voice of a man, who Sarek assumed was a worker at the hotel because of his uniform. He was standing closer than Sarek would have liked to, but at least the chocolate was finally leaving his system. The oppression in his stomach finally disappeared.

Sarek stared at the man blankly in clouding confusion, as he didn’t understand the question in the slightest. He continued to throw up until his stomach was empty. Of course, he was _not_ okay and he needed help. The man’s query was stupid, he thought irritated once again. He wouldn’t question the health state of someone vomiting in a public space, blushed and as disoriented as he was.

“Ambassador, I’ve been searching for you.”

Sarek blinked in confusion, looking the source of the voice, he saw the image of his young human assistant. He felt the reluctantly of his assistant as he helped him to stand, his human emotions running through him when he touched his arm to help him to stand up.

“Is he okay?” Sarek heard the man asking to his assistant, before English became an unintelligible gibberish in his ears.

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Amanda entered the house after a long day in the greenhouse, taking care of the Terran plants Sarek gave to her as a wedding anniversary gift.

Leila had taken the day off. So she was lonely and bored and, of course, Sarek was working. Amanda was not ready to hire people who would be constantly around the house. Sarek had suggested they should because it was a huge place, but she valued her privacy. Thus, aside from Lila and a couple of Vulcans who came every couple of days to assist with cleaning and laundry, she was alone most of the time.

She had spent the day thinking about him and what he would be doing. Mostly, because she could feel his distress in the back of her mind. She had tried to do research about his symptoms, but nothing concluding came across aside from the evident decrease in his general well-being.

She watered her Terran roses and stood, noticing that it was dark outside and it was quite late. Sarek should be arriving soon. He would have to eat whatever the replicator had to offer because Lila was still out, Amanda was not in the mood to cook dinner and Sarek’s cooking skills were awfully bad. Also, Amanda was not exactly pleased with his behavior these days. Anyway, Sarek wouldn’t eat anything as usual.

Once she showered in one of bathrooms in the first floor before going to sleep, she glanced at the old-fashioned clock that indicated how late it was. Another half an hour had passed and she was growing impatient. She got into bed as usual and read an article about linguistics, not really paying attention to it. After almost an hour of waiting, she turned off her PADD and closed her eyes too tired to remain up.

The next morning, Amanda woke up alone in bed. Sarek hasn’t been there and she was beginning to think he had not come back home.

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Sarek returned to the house really late. His assistant had called a transport for him and accompanied him on the trip through the always busy Shi’kahr to his residency in the other side of the city. To that point, he was struggling to not tremble and his mind was too loud that he couldn’t even thank the human for his help. The day after, he didn’t even show up at work nor called to get a sick day because he just forgot.

When he finished showering, Amanda was sitting on the sofa of their shared bedroom, waiting for him with her arms crossed on her chest. He had showered three times using cold water, but the fever didn’t relent. Therefore, he was running out of time and Amanda’s presence was a reminder of his failure to overcome the _pon farr_ without assistance.

“Amanda,” Sarek said, without any clear idea for an excuse to justify the fact he had skipped work.

“I thought you’d be at work,” Amanda started, her eyes were examining him carefully and he felt exposed. “Are you sick?”

He instantly shook his head, regretting it. He had thrown away the only excuse it didn’t sound like a poorly conceived lie.

“So… what is your explanation?”

“Pardon?”

“Yes. I want to hear what do you have to say,” she stated and remained quiet, her eyes were utterly attached to him and he felt that Amanda could see through him.

“I do not…”

"We're going to go to see a healer," Amanda interrupted, flatly.

It was not a question or a plea, as far as Sarek understood.

" _No_!" The sole idea of being dragged to a healer, where he would need to deal with the eyes of a stranger judging him for not being able to admit his condition to his bond mate was horrifying.

"No? _Why_ not?"

Sarek recovered the composure and added, more calmly, “It is unnecessary. My health is not compromised in any way, Amanda." Not a lie, but not a truthful statement, either. Was he ill or affected by some sort of disease? The answer was no, because the _pon farr_ was not a disease or illness and his health was not compromised... _yet_.

"I don't believe you," Amanda stated, softly, without the hint of annoyance she had at the beginning of the conversation. Her eyes resembled warmer than ever, like she felt sorry for him in an incomprehensible manner. "But you already know that, don't you? You can't hide me anything, because I can feel it. Even before being bondmates... I can read _you_ , Sarek."

Amanda stopped all of sudden. Like if she realized something in her prior demeanor was out of place. Sarek suspected his constant emotional dripping was affecting Amanda's own emotional state. He felt truly sorry for that, his weak telepathic shields were the ones to blame.

"I... Never mind."

“Amanda." He wanted to let her know she wasn't not out of place without speaking about his pon farr. Sarek was aware that he was the source of her anguish and highly disliked to be collaterally hurting his beloved Amanda while trying to do exactly the opposite. He was so far away from logic or common sense, but for some reason his gut feeling told him that his actions were upon her best interest and well-being.

He was trying to protect her... _of himself._

She looked away, remaining next to him, but keeping absolute silence.

“I'm so confused. I feel this way because of _you_."

"I apologize."

"No, I mean... _This_... this doesn't belong to me. The feelings are not mine, are yours," she said, sure of her own words. Her eyes focused on him, and with a confident tone, she asked, void of all emotion, “ _Why_ are you so worried about? What are you so _ashamed_ of?"

He stared at her in silence. Amanda was expecting an answer when Sarek saw her looking at his hands in shock, as if he was bleeding in front of her. Quickly, he realized his hands were trembling again and the only thing he could do was look with shame darkening his face, unable to stop it.

“Sarek,” she whispered worried, walking towards him, caressing his arm as a gesture to convey calm until his hands stopped shaking. “W-what is happening to you?”

He knew that it was the moment to tell Amanda. The shaking hands were the breaking point and after embarrassing himself in front of his colleagues and other Vulcans very publicly, telling Amanda, who was his wife and bondmate, resembled less distressing.

“Every seven years,” he started, nervous and taking a seat next to her on the sofa, “Vulcan males who follow logic experience a biological _event_. A generalized imbalance takes over us, this event is called the _pon farr_.”

“Imbalance?” Amanda’s expression darkened and Sarek knew she was growing worried, then she stammered, “Are you… _sick_?”

“No.”

He stayed quiet for a moment. His mind was a mess and explaining a subject that brought great shame to his race wasn’t making the situation any easier.

“Then, I don’t understand. You’re clearly _not_ okay and it doesn’t make any sense the fact that you’re telling me you’re not sick,” she said uncertainly. “Not when I notice that you don’t want to eat, you’re unable to sleep and… you lose the control over yourself.”

Sarek stared at her for a brief moment, unsure how to speak further about the actual topic and the way to solve it. Instead of feeling tempted because of Amanda’s closeness, as on other occasions, he felt exposed and ashamed.

“The _pon farr_ is not a disease, nor an illness.”

“Help me to understand you. There is… anything I can do to make you feel better?”

 _Yes_ , he thought. The sudden visions of what she could do to help him to sough his condition made him blush and a strong feeling of shame came across. 

“The imbalance causes irresistible… _urges_ ,” he said in a quiet voice, uttering the last word.

“ _Oh_.”

Amanda nodded silently.

Despite she stayed quiet, Sarek felt she was more relaxed than at the beginning of the conversation. Her eyes were still on him and Sarek took her lack of verbal reply as a signal to continue his explanation, “I shall mate or die to overcome my…condition.”

“ _Mate or die_?” she repeated with an ambiguous facial expression. Her evident bewilderment turned into pure laugher and amusement, which offended Sarek. “I’m not laughing at you. I-I’m so sorry. I just… I was ready to force you to see a healer because I was so worried, when all you needed was sex.”

“I…”

“So…Mate or _die_?”

“Yes. I…”

“Mate… _or_ … _die,_ ” Amanda echoed.

“Please, do not repeat it anymore,” Sarek begged in a quiet voice while the tips of his ears became as green as his cheeks.

“You could have told me anytime, Sarek,” she stated and he felt ridiculous.

“I was… illogical.”

Sarek blinked, shocked to realize how easy it had been telling Amanda. Remember the spectacle he had done the last night, only highlighted how illogical he behaved. Would it had been easier to be truthful? Definitely, yes. Now, he had embarrassed himself in front of a spectrum of individuals he would see during the rest of his career as a diplomat and he owed an apology to his assistant for his erratic behavior.

“Amanda,” he whispered when he felt her hand caressing his arm.

He felt the heat spreading on his face.

“I’ve missed you,” Amanda muttered way too close to his ear. He shuddered to her touch, her hand felt extremely cold against his feverish flesh.

She guided him to their shared bed as if he was completely oblivious. He complied in silence, and didn’t protest when Amanda pushed him softly to the mattress. Sarek eyed the door and then, his eyes met Amanda’s before leaning to kiss her. She felt his skin burning, feverish. Sarek deepened the kiss and his need dripped through their bond. Amanda felt the heat evolving her as it emerged from the depths of her being.

Sarek’s heart was pounding with excitement. He was burning and shaking. The unbearable heat of the _pon farr_ was taking over his consciousness. Amanda brushed the buttons of his pajama with her fingers, tempting him with her eyes full of lust. He could only observe impatiently as she slowly started to unbutton one by one. It took Sarek the last remains of his control to not rip off his own shirt.

When she reached out for the waistband of his trousers, she learned that he was struggling to contain his urges. His arousal was visible. She pulled down his pajama pants and underwear at once and he became naked, which made him flush further. Amanda contemplated him for the briefest of the moments and began to undress herself under Sarek’s scrutiny.

Sarek was overwhelmed by the relief he felt once his bodies joined to become one. It was even more stimulating than he remembered. Amanda’s welcoming mind melting with his own was delightful and he had been craving the closeness all that time.

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Amanda had asked Lila to not go upstairs during the following days with the excuse that Sarek was quarantined with a non-life threatening illness. She made a lot of emphasis in that he needed to rest in utter silence and not being disturbed.

The first day, she felt like Sarek had finally breathed freely in a way she could not explain with words. Slowly, he had become less and less verbal, which make her feel worried at the beginning. By that time, he wasn’t talking anymore. The only communication he seemed to return to her was telepathic.

It was the afternoon. She had slept during the last seven hours, according to the squared shaped clock on her nightstand. She had heard Sarek thrashing around the bed half dressed with a shirt on inside out, restless and desirous during the time she was sleeping.

“Come here,” she said and felt stupid because of the blank stare Sarek gave to her. She patted in the bed and Sarek complied without hesitation. He cuddled next to her in silence, looking at her with intensiveness.

“I need to eat, Sarek.”

He seemed to understand her meaning, because he stared at the food Lila had brought and left on the stairs to Amanda to pick it up. Amanda saw Sarek handle a bowl with cold tomato soup and take the metal spoon to feed her. He had insisted too much in take care of her, despite not saying a single word about it. He had bathed her, fed her and brushed her hair with all his attention poured into her. She accepted every spoonful, distracted by the vision of the bowl getting emptied and the shaky hand feeding her.

It was an odd realization, but Amanda was certain she knew how much Sarek needed her once again.

So she put the half empty bowl on the nightstand and got closer to him, brushing her lips against his. He touched her long black hair with gentleness, like she was a delicate doll that he was afraid to shatter.

“I know,” she said out loud as an indisputable asseveration, caressing his flushed cheek. “You need me.”

The answer was clear when he replied with a kiss.

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Sarek had slept for the past twenty-seven minutes and when he finally woke up, she knew that he needed something of her and was not sex. She got closer, like a baby sehlat approaching to an unknown danger. At the beginning, he stared at her, reflecting an undecipherable emotion in his eyes that she had never seen before. After a couple of minutes, she understood he was asking for her permission.

He wanted to mind meld with her.

Amanda reached out for his hand and held it between her hands. Sarek gasped when she brushed the palm of his hand and guide him to place it in her face.

His eyes shone with visible excitement.

He was eager. She could feel his emotions as if she were contemplating hers. The overwhelming amount of emotion hit her as a ton of bricks, but quickly mixed with her own feelings towards Sarek and the entire situation. Amanda felt the warm-heartedness of his love, affection and strength covering her as a mantle of protection. It was like being inside a void apart of the world, where no one mattered aside from them. Mind melding always felt like a warm cup of tea to the soul, a remembering that they were one forever. No one would ever dare to touch a hair on her head or pinpoint the sole idea because she was certain Sarek would never allow such thing to happen.

_Sarek would kill for her._

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Amanda’s eyes opened in the middle of the darkness. The weak moonlight made its way through the reddish curtains of the window. He saw the figure of Sarek sat on the ottoman at the footboard. Once more, facing to the wall where it was placed the entrance to the room. 

Every break they took to eat, bath or sleep Sarek would remain like a watchdog looking at the door of the bedroom without taking his eyes off. Perhaps, she was misunderstanding what he intended by looking directly at the door, but she suspected he felt the need to monitor the compound.

Amanda imagined that such action was reasonable in the past, when Vulcans were violent and instinct-driven like humans. Modern Vulcans didn’t need to ensure such preventive measures since the dangers that enhanced that kind of behavior were no longer part of their way. When they were still living on earth, Sarek had mentioned that Vulcans considered securing a mate as important, especially after the Awakening. At the time, she had not understood why aside from being another of those steps every culture expected of adult members of society to consider they had successfully built a life. The revelation of the existence of the pon farr shed a different light on that aspect of the Vulcan culture. Initially, she found barbaric and irrational to arrange marriages and bond kids at a very young age, but taking into consideration what she just learned, it didn’t seem purposeless.

She reached out for the bond and felt what only could be described as a radio silence. Sarek was really concentrated into monitoring the door and she felt odd to realize he was trying to protect her in some way from a non-exiting threat. There was no way another male could try to claim her if that was what he wanted to prevent to happen. They weren’t trapped in a cave, in the open and exposed to all kinds of dangers.

“Sarek,” she whispered.

She felt what she perceived as Sarek uttering her name through their bond.

* * *

**[…]**

* * *

Amanda had awoken early.

Sarek was still sleeping, which was unusual, but justified after all they have gone through together. She poked him in the cheek and tried to wake him up, but he was completely unconscious. Probably, she had never seen him sleep that much, because he required less hours of sleep than her. Amanda had spent an entire day with Lila, who was worried and seemed to believe completely the excuse she had made up. She knew nothing about the _pon farr_ , only the minimal amount of information that Sarek had disclosed, but Amanda suspected that he was recovering in some manner because he had slept soundly during the whole fourth day.

A day after that, he had finally woken up. Sarek’s eyes fluttered open, right after she entered the bedroom, hoping see him awake. Amanda sat on the edge of the bed with a subtle smirk.

“ _Ko-telsu_ ,” he whispered.

His voice was weak and hoarse for the lack of use.

Hearing his voice once again for the first time in three days meant that he was beginning to stabilize. His emotions were visible, but he seemed more coherent than the last couple of weeks.

A lot less moody and irritable.

“Sarek.”

“Amanda,” he said.

Hearing his own voice pronouncing her name felt odd. That sensation of uncertainty and generalized imbalance was fading away, and for the first time in weeks, his mind felt less like a battleground.

“You’re finally back,” she said and smirked broadly.

She got into bed and Sarek curled up in her arms. He was wondering how much he had slept after, because Amanda looked like she had been busy downstairs and had the occasion to change her clothes and do her makeup. Meanwhile, he was still naked under the white sheets and he didn’t need to verify to know that his hair was unkempt.

“One day,” she said, replying to his question before even formulate it.

A strong feeling of regret filled his chest. The thought of hurting Amanda appeared in his mind, which was one of his greatest fears and had been the main reason for what he refused to rely on Amanda’s help. Sarek closed his eyes for a split second, forcing himself to recall what had happened during the past three days, but nothing came to his mind, aside from indistinct snippets where he had been unable to keep the concentration in everything that wasn’t mate.

“Did I…?”

She felt the regret from his side of the bond. His mental shields were low and she could feel his raw presence in the back of her mind.

“No, you were careful,” she cut him off, before adding in a quiet tone, “It’s that the reason you didn’t want to tell me, right?”

A wave of silence evolved them. Sarek blinked, but didn’t reply.

“Why you didn’t tell me?” Amanda insisted.

“I behaved illogically.” He admitted after a moment of hesitation.

“You shouldn’t feel like you need to conceal things from me.”

“The imbalance enhances illogical behavior,” he started. “The control over our emotions have been a trait we enforce among ourselves to prevent endangering others. This…biological _event_ brings great shame for Vulcan males, because we lost almost utter control over our demeanor and the instincts can drive us entirely mad in the search to meet the urge for mating.”

“I don’t know if I get your meaning,” Amanda replied. What Sarek was insinuating with that wording was terrifying.

“Vulcan males affected by the _pon farr_ are capable of inflicting violence.”

“That meaning…”

“Breaking bones, forcing ourselves into others… _killing,_ ” he added, not daring to look at her. Voicing out loud the potential he had to commit something as despicable as that put into perspective his irresponsible behavior.

“You should’ve told me way before.”

“I should have told you and I regret not doing it prior.”

Sarek truly regretted not being honest from the very beginning. He had put at risk Amanda’s well-being, as well as the physical integrity of other individuals. He had to remove himself to Amanda’s friend’s birthday celebration because of the strong feelings surfacing as a response of common social interactions he comprehended and recognized as important inside her culture.

“Vulcans do not speak about it…not even among ourselves.”

“I knew that something was happening to you, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”

“It was irresponsible on my behalf not to inform you. I was prideful and overestimated myself by thinking I could overcome my… _condition_ on my own. I failed, endangering you in consequence.”

“So…there are other ways to _cure_ this?”

“Meditation can be practiced in the early stages.”

“I guess that is why you were meditating all the time. It didn’t work, right?”

“No.”

“You sound a lot more like yourself now.”

“I am alive because of you, Amanda. I’m grateful.”

“No more secrets like that, okay?”

He nodded in silence and Amanda saw him blushing viciously. Sarek knew she would eventually learn about the incident and he preferred her to hear it from him.

“I…I almost physically assaulted a colleague,” he admitted as calmly as he could manage himself to be. He was still deeply ashamed of his actions and illogical behavior.

“Do you mean Ambassador Noraag?” she quickly added.

“How do you know that information?”

“I don’t even need to ask why. You never liked him, “Amanda replied.

“That is highly illogical.”

“Nonetheless, it’s the truth. You never liked him, because he _loves_ to tease and he doesn’t let go any opportunity to do so.”

“So what happened?” she asked, curious to hear the entire story. Amanda wondered if her presence there would have made any difference. She had the impression that Sarek would have tried to fight the stubborn Tellarite Ambassador anyway. 

“Ambassador Sovek stopped me and removed me out of the event. My assistant helped me to return here,” he explained.

“You better give him a bonus. You surely weren’t the nicest boss the last couple of weeks. The poor guy deserves it.”

“I was able to keep my functions as a diplomat.”

Amanda arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

“You sure about that? You were all moody and odd.”

“Perhaps I was, but I am back to normal from now on.”

The sound of his stomach growling made Amanda laugh.

“Yes, you’re back!”

Sarek openly smiled to Amanda. A warm sensation of emotion involved his entire being, realizing how deeply he cared for her and how grateful he was. 

“ _Taluhk nash-veh k'dular_.”

“I love you too.”

And they kissed, to reaffirm their affection for one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, you enjoyed the story as much I enjoyed writing it. The next chapter is a short epilogue :)  
> Thank you so much for your kudos! Thank you so much for reading.  
> I’m currently writing a story named Scandal that you can find here:
> 
>   
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018174/chapters/60582706


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! 
> 
> If you want to read more stories featuring this characters, I'm writting a story titled Scandal that you can find here:
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018174/chapters/60582706

**Epilogue**

* * *

Amanda started to feel sick a few weeks after Sarek’s _pon farr_ and the time only made worse her health state. She wanted to blame the Vulcan heat of the summer and the thin atmosphere, telling herself that she only needed a tri-ox injection and things would be okay. Nonetheless, denialism wasn’t going to do her any favor, and unlike Sarek, she took the right step from the very beginning. Sarek’s recent experience was the perfect cautionary tale about why it wasn’t a good idea ignore the clear signals that her body was displaying.

After an entire week of hesitation, Amanda summoned up her courage and showed up to the local hospital. She had never felt as nervous than in the waiting room, where all her doubts would be finally resolved. 

“The blood work results will be in three standard days from now, Mrs. Grayson,” the nurse had announced in a cold voice before dismissing her “You are free to leave.”

When Amanda finally had the result on her hands, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Was she dreaming? Everything seemed so unreal and scary.

_How it had happened?_

Amanda had tormented herself with the question. Sarek had said it was highly improbable to naturally conceive without any previous medical intervention. She had accustomed to the idea of suffering and going under painful fertility treatments before even being close to get pregnant. An overwhelming sensation of fear and uncertainty for the future filled her entire being. One of the main reasons that fueled her worries was the possible genetic incompatibility that could end in a miscarriage.

Actually, she was more afraid of the uncertainty than of the known dangers. 

_Was she even ready to become a mom? What would Sarek say?_ She had asked herself when the results popped up on the screen of her device.

Sarek just knew it when he stepped in their house to find her staring blankly at the PADD on her hands, still processing the news. Amanda felt unable to move, turn to face him or even utter anything until she felt Sarek trying to comfort her through a weak hug.

“ _Ashayam_.”

“Sarek.”

“Are you well?” he asked. She could perceive a mild feeling of concern because of her lack of verbal or telepathic response.

“We'll both be parents,” she announced in a shaky voice. She turned to him, her eyes wide open in shock. Verbally communicate the results confirm it as something real, as she were waking up from a coma to realize how complicate the prospect of the future would be.

Amanda’s hands were shaking as much as Sarek’s during the _pon farr_ and tears threatened to fall from her eyes. She didn’t dare to face Sarek while he took the PADD from her hands, confirming her announcement once the screen displayed the results.

“What are we gonna do, Sarek?” she questioned with a cracking voice.

Sarek reached out for her trembling hand. The warm wave of calm, comforting her made her heartbeat return back to normal.

“You are the one who will decide, since you are carrying the child.”

Despite the turmoil, the worries and the fear, Amanda wanted to have the baby. The decision was clear in her mind.

“Our child,” she corrected him in a soft voice.

“Our child,” Sarek repeated.

“I want this baby. I want to try,” she admitted.

Sarek stayed quiet for what it felt like an eternity and then, the tiniest of the smiles appeared on his lips.

Amanda was uncertain of everything, but that was a constant sentiment since they had decided to share a life together. Their relationship was a journey of permanent learning from one another. None of them could predict the future. The only thing they knew it was that it wouldn’t be an easy path, but they had each other and that would be sufficient to endure any possible obstacle.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry is this isn't an accurate depiction of Pon farr. I'll be editing this story in the future. I imagine this biological event more like an illness and I didn't want to romanticize it at all. 
> 
> In other words, this is a Sick!Fic.


End file.
